Pope Francis has directly intervened to end an impasse between the Vatican and the Order of Malta over controversial reforms, the Catholic Herald has learned.
The Holy Father told the leaders of the Vatican delegation they must include senior knights nominated by the Order in crisis talks and not only those hand-picked by themselves.  
The Herald has learned that Francis held a meeting with Cardinal Silvano Tomasi, his Special Delegate, about the talks with the Order, and Fr Gianfranco Ghirlanda, the Jesuit former rector of the Gregorian University and expert on Canon Law who is advising him, and instructed them to be more accommodating.
Cardinal Tomasi had previously refused to accept the appointment of Marwan Sehnaoui, the Order’s Sovereign Council nominated leader and President of the Order’s Lebanese Association, and invited Riccardo Patterno’, the President of the Italian Association, to take his place instead.
Sehnaoui said in a letter that the response from Cardinal Tomasi was “clearly a direct attack on the sovereignty of our Order”.
The cardinal’s refusal to meet him angered many members of the Order who were already grievously troubled by the prospect of a possible Vatican takeover and the subsequent loss of their sovereign independence for the first time in 900 years, arising from the terms of a proposed revised constitution.
It left three days of talks at the Grand Magistry on the Via Condotti in Rome last week on the verge of breaking down instead of ending nearly four years of wrangling which following the intervention into the leadership of the Order by Pope Francis in 2017.
A source said a meeting of the “old commission” appointed by Cardinal Tomasi to finalise a new draft constitution for the Order, which was due to take place in February, has now been cancelled so that the position can be reviewed.
“The new commission will meet with the Holy Father and present proposals,” a source told the Herald.
In a letter to members of the Order, Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager, a German, signalled that the impasse was over, with the threat to the Order’s sovereignty also directly addressed.
“God has listened to your prayers,” he said. “Over the past week, we were able to open up and strengthen our communications at the highest levels of the Holy See, receiving important assurances from the Holy Father.”
“The misunderstandings that have prevailed between the working group of the Special Delegate, His Eminence Cardinal Tomasi and representatives of the Order are now beginning to subside.”
He added: “We have received satisfactory assurances that there is no intention to infringe in any way upon the sovereignty and the right of self-governance of the Order of Malta and, as a result, certain articles in the proposed draft constitution have been amended accordingly.”
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is the world’s oldest Christian charity and a lay religious military order since the 11th century.
As well as being a lay religious order, the Order is also a sovereign state, exchanging ambassadors with some 112 countries and with Permanent Observer status at the United Nations.
Under the initial proposed reforms, the Vatican sought to grant an expanded but controversial governing role to the Fras – known as the Professed Knights (or Knights of Justice) – under the spiritual authority of the Pope.
Many members felt the proposed reforms would have also stripped the Order of its sovereignty via the terms of the draft constitution which would have explicitly rendered it a “subject” of the Holy See.
The new designation would effectively mean the loss of the Order’s sovereign status recognised in international law and by the United Nations, with an impact on its relations with more than a hundred countries in which it carries out relief and charitable work and also upon its finances and cash flow.
The Pope first intervened in the governance of the Order when he demanded the abdication of Fra Matthew Festing, the British-born former Grand Master who died in November last year, because of Festing’s attempt to force the resignation of Fra Boeselager as Grand Chancellor.
Boeselager was reinstated and the Holy Father appointed Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, who is at present standing trial at the Vatican on corruption charges, as his Special Delegate to oversee reforms of the religious life of the Fras but replaced him with Cardinal Tomasi in 2020.

(Photo: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images)

The post Pope intervenes to end Vatican impasse over proposed reforms to Order of Malta appeared first on Catholic Herald.