VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis will name his own man to run the Knights of Malta temporarily after the head of the ancient chivalric and charity institution resigned in the climax of a bitter dispute over sovereignty with the Vatican.

FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis (R) meets Robert Matthew Festing, Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta during a private audience at the Vatican June 23, 2016. REUTERS/Gabriel Bouys/Pool/File Photo

The pope asked Grand Master Matthew Festing, 67, to step down at a meeting on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Rome-based Catholic institution said. Grand masters usually rule for life.

Festing and the Vatican had been locked in a dispute since the Knights’ Grand Chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager was sacked in December in the chivalric equivalent of a boardroom showdown - ostensibly for allowing the use of condoms in a medical project for the poor.

The two-month battle of wills reflected broader opposition inside the Roman Catholic Church to Francis’s efforts to modernize the Holy See and gently unravel the legacy of his conservative predecessors.

The Vatican, which is a sovereign state, said the pope would name a “pontifical delegate” to run the group, which also enjoys sovereign status and is recognized by about 100 countries.

Vatican sources said this was a temporary solution until the Knights were in a position to elect their own leader again.

The move was similar to one in 1983 when the Pope John Paul II named a delegate to temporarily run the Jesuit order, which he feared was becoming too leftist. More recently, the Vatican named a delegate to run the conservative Legionaries of Christ, which has hit by a sexual abuse scandal.

The Knights’ top governing body, the Sovereign Council, was convened for Saturday to take stock of the crisis.

When the dispute broke out, von Boeselager appealed to the pope, who appointed a commission to investigate. Festing, a Briton, refused to cooperate, saying that violated the order’s sovereignty.

CONDOM CONTROVERSY

Some insiders said the push against von Boeselager was an excuse by Festing and arch-conservative American Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, the order’s patron, to increase their power.

Burke, who was demoted from a top Vatican job in 2014, is one of four cardinals who have made a rare public challenge to Francis, accusing him of sowing confusion on moral issues.

The all-male top leaders of the Knights of Malta are not clerics but take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the pope. The institution has 13,500 members, 25,000 employees and 80,000 volunteers worldwide.

The order was formed in the 11th century to provide protection and medical care for pilgrims to the Holy Land.

When Festing fired von Boeselager, he accused the German of hiding the fact that he allowed the use of condoms when he ran Malteser International, the order’s humanitarian aid agency.

The church does not allow condoms as a means of birth control and says abstinence and monogamy in heterosexual marriage is the best way to stop the spread of AIDS.

Von Boeselager said he closed two projects in the developing world when he discovered condoms were being distributed but kept a third running for a while because closing it would have abruptly ended all basic medical services to poor people.</s>Donald Trump railed against globalization and conducted an unpredictable, populist campaign — often on Twitter — to win a large and devoted following.

Much the same could be said of Pope Francis.

Both have been adept at harnessing popular movements to propel their own ideas and their rise to power. But the political messages they espouse are diametrically opposed and their versions of populism are markedly different, setting up a potential rivalry that might easily morph into verbal conflict in the months to come.

Already, Trump and the Pope have sparred over immigration, and as Trump settles into the White House, he may become the perfect foil for a politically activist pope who has become a lodestar for alt-left movements across Europe.

Popes and presidents have clashed before, “from fights under Bill Clinton on population control and abortion rights, to rifts under George W. Bush over John Paul II’s opposition to the Iraq war,” said John L. Allen, author of nine books on the Vatican and Catholic affairs. “So it’s logical to expect there will be clashes under Trump.”

The areas of contention between Trump and Francis are many.

After Trump’s election in November, the Pope invited some of the world’s premier scientists to the Vatican, telling them there has “never been such a clear need for science” and condemning the “ease with which well-founded scientific opinion about the state of our planet is disregarded.” While he didn’t mention the Republicans or Trump, who has vowed to walk away from the Paris Climate accord, the implication was clear.

“The United States has hitched its cart to a fervently anti-science Congress under the whip hand of an unfit fraud,” the columnist Neil Steinberg wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this month. “Pope Francis’ leadership is welcome.”

During the U.S. election campaign, the Pope told journalists aboard his papal plane that someone who wants to build walls “is not a Christian.” Trump responded on Facebook: “If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened.”

The Middle East presents another possible flashpoint.

“There will probably be some tensions over the Middle East since Trump is strongly pro-Israel and both the Vatican generally, and Francis personally, are a little more critical,” said Allen.

The church may also become involved in the fight over American values. The Catholic magazine Crux wrote last week that given the election of Trump and a Republican congress threatening to privatize social services, U.S. bishops “may be changing their list of priorities from moral issues such as abortion back to social issues like economic justice and immigration.”

For the time being, Pope Francis has adopted a wait-and-see approach on Trump, telling Spain’s El País in an interview on Sunday that he didn’t like “to get ahead of myself nor judge people prematurely. We will see how he acts, what he does, and then I will have an opinion.”

Unlike his predecessor Benedict, a conservative German academic and staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy who lectured on absolute moral values, Francis is an Argentine-born Jesuit who is more vocal about issues of social justice and has been full-throated in articulating the Church’s suspicions about the efficacy of capitalism, which he has described as “this economy that kills.”

Francis has called for “the globalization of hope” to take the place of “the globalization of exclusion and indifference” — language that has been welcomed in Spain by the left-wing, anti-austerity movement Podemos, which came third in June’s general elections. “If by populism we mean a political doctrine that takes care of people’s problems and interests, then he’s certainly a populist pope,” said Txema Guijarro, a Podemos lawmaker. “I would not say [Francis] is a leader but rather a touchstone” for the far left.

In Latin America, the Pope’s political influence has extended to playing a major role in brokering a diplomatic deal between Cuba and the U.S. and intervening in Venezuela following the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013 in an attempt to prevent political instability.

“The Pope is influential, not only because of his rhetoric but also because of his actions,” said Guijarro, who sees Francis as a natural antagonist of Trump, though it’s too early to say whether he’ll assume that role in practice. “He works at a very different level, even though, of course, he is also a politician and not only the leader of the Church.”

Far-left grassroots movements have beaten a path to the Pope’s door — and often found it open. On three occasions, he met representatives of what he calls “popular movements,” including anti-globalization groups. On the last such visit, a few days before the U.S. elections, he urged them to step further into the political arena.

Gianni Vattimo, an Italian philosopher and former MEP who is a leading figure on the far left in Europe, wants the Pope to become the spiritual leader of a new anti-globalization movement.

“The importance of this papacy is in being a reference point for the so-called alternative movements,” Vattimo told POLITICO. The Pope can be a unifying force “without saying exactly what one should do.”

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 80, took the name Francis when he became pope. The name is associated with piety — Saint Francis of Assisi left his wealthy family to live in poverty — but also a lesser-noticed connection to royalty and, by extension, the earthly pursuit of politics. (European history is littered with kings and emperors by the name Francis or Franz.)

At the same time, Francis has carefully honed his image as a man of the people, someone who speaks his mind. On his papal flights, he will often speak freely with journalists before the Vatican diplomats are able to water down his strong remarks.

Like Trump, the Pope often communicates directly to the people via Twitter. Like Trump, he clearly likes to speak off the cuff, and, like Trump, he has yet to meet a crowd he didn’t like.

Loris Zanatta, a professor at Bologna University who last year authored a hotly-debated essay titled “A populist pope” in the prestigious leftwing journal Il Mulino, has studied Francis’ rhetoric and tallied how often he used the word pueblo (Spanish for “people”) in his key speeches in 2015, compared to other keywords like “democracy” or “individual.” Pueblo appeared as many as 356 times, compared to just 10 times for “democracy” and 14 appearances — mainly negative — for “individual.”

For Zanatta, Francis’s politics are best understood as rooted in a South American populist tradition that owes a lot to Peronism, a political movement based on the political legacy of former Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón. To Francis, poverty is morally superior to a “selfish and predatory oligarchy,” writes Zanatta.

Iacopo Scaramuzzi, a Vatican analyst, points out that for Francis, “populism is not a bad word because his cultural and theological formations are based on the idea of the people.”

But, he added, if you’re the people’s pope, “then you have a problem when the same people vote for Trump.”

Popes have clashed with kings and emperors for centuries, fighting over doctrine, property and influence. In modern history, the best known example of a pope throwing his weight around was John Paul II’s backing for the Solidarity trade union in his native Poland in the 1980s, which was instrumental in the fall of communism. Ronald Reagan, who bonded with John Paul II in the fight against “godless Communism,” was the first to formalize U.S. diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

While Francis may have populist appeal, he is still the leader of a 2,000-year-old conservative institution with more than a billion disparate adherents who don’t all agree with his views on climate change, migration or social values — indeed, many Catholics may align more closely with Trump.

In Poland, the Pope’s embrace of the environment, for example, has caused concern. In an encyclical published in 2015, he wrote that coal “must be replaced, progressively and without delay,” which wasn’t well-received in the country that boasts Europe’s largest coal sector.

On migration, the distance between this Pope and the current Polish conservative government is even wider, with Francis advocating on behalf of refugees and Poland closing its borders.

Since Trump’s election, those who oppose Francis within the church “have raised their head,” said Scaramuzzi.

One leading conservative opponent of Francis within the church, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, told the National Catholic Register, an American newspaper, that Trump’s success is a “clear sign of the will of the people” and an indication that politicians need to “return to safeguarding life, marriage, the family and religious liberty.”

Christoph Schönborn, the 71-year-old Archbishop of Vienna, also seemed at ease with the election of Trump. “I do not know if Ms. Clinton really would have been the better choice,” he told an Austrian paper. “And I don’t know whether Mr. Trump is such a great misfortune.”

John Carr, who directs the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, told Crux last week that world events are pulling Catholics in different directions.

“What are the two most stunning developments of the past five years? The election of Francis as pope and the election of Donald Trump as president,” he said. “It seems to me that Catholics … are going to have to make a choice: Which is their vision?”

Diego Torres in Madrid contributed to this article.</s>The Latest: Pope to name delegate to run Knights of Malta

ROME (AP) — The Latest on the resignation of the Knights of Malta head (all times local):

The Vatican says Pope Francis will name a pontifical delegate to run the embattled Knights of Malta, effectively taking over the sovereign lay Catholic order after its leader resigned in a bitter dispute with the pontiff over condoms.

The move marks an extraordinary intervention of one sovereign state — the Holy See — into the governance of another — the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an ancient aristocratic order that runs a vast charity operation around the globe.

A statement from the Vatican said Francis accepted the resignation of the order's grand master, Matthew Festing, which he had offered Tuesday.

The statement said the order's governance would shift temporarily to the No. 2 "until the pontifical delegate is named."

The head of the Knights of Malta has resigned after entering into a public spat with Pope Francis over the ouster of a top official involved in a condom scandal.

Marianna Balfour, spokeswoman for the ancient lay Catholic order, told The Associated Press that Matthew Festing had met with the pope on Tuesday and offered his resignation.

In an email, Balfour said that "I can confirm this."

Festing had refused to cooperate with a papal commission investigating his ouster of the grand chancellor, Albrecht von Boeselager, over revelations that the order's charity branch had distributed condoms under his watch. Festing had cited the Knights' status as a sovereign entity in refusing to cooperate.

FILE - In this June 25, 2015 file photo, Pope Francis greets the Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta Matthew Festing, right, at the end of a private audience in the Pontiff's private library at the Vatican. Festing resigned after entering into a public spat with Francis over the ouster of a top official involved in a condom scandal, a spokeswoman for the ancient lay Catholic order said on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2013 file photo, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta Matthew Festing waits for the start of a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Tacisio Bertone, not pictured, to mark the 900th anniversary of the Order of the Knights of Malta, at the Vatican. Festing resigned after entering into a public spat with Pope Francis over the ouster of a top official involved in a condom scandal, a spokeswoman for the ancient lay Catholic order said on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)</s>ROME (AP) — The Latest on the resignation of the Knights of Malta head (all times local):

The Vatican says Pope Francis will name a pontifical delegate to run the embattled Knights of Malta, effectively taking over the sovereign lay Catholic order after its leader resigned in a bitter dispute with the pontiff over condoms.

The move marks an extraordinary intervention of one sovereign state — the Holy See — into the governance of another — the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an ancient aristocratic order that runs a vast charity operation around the globe.

A statement from the Vatican said Francis accepted the resignation of the order’s grand master, Matthew Festing, which he had offered Tuesday.

The statement said the order’s governance would shift temporarily to the No. 2 “until the pontifical delegate is named.”

The head of the Knights of Malta has resigned after entering into a public spat with Pope Francis over the ouster of a top official involved in a condom scandal.

Marianna Balfour, spokeswoman for the ancient lay Catholic order, told The Associated Press that Matthew Festing had met with the pope on Tuesday and offered his resignation.

In an email, Balfour said that “I can confirm this.”

Festing had refused to cooperate with a papal commission investigating his ouster of the grand chancellor, Albrecht von Boeselager, over revelations that the order’s charity branch had distributed condoms under his watch. Festing had cited the Knights’ status as a sovereign entity in refusing to cooperate.</s>VATICAN CITY (CNS) — After weeks of very public tensions with the Vatican, the head of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta accepted Pope Francis’ request that he submit his resignation.

The order’s communications office confirmed Jan. 25 that Fra Matthew Festing, the 67-year-old grand master, met with Pope Francis the day before and agreed to resign.

The Vatican said Jan. 25 that Pope Francis intends to appoint a pontifical delegate to govern the order.

Festing, who has led the world’s largest chivalric order since 2008, will submit his resignation Jan. 28 to the order’s governing council, according to the order’s communications office.

A short Vatican statement said Festing offered to resign Jan. 24 and Pope Francis accepted his offer the next day while “expressing to Fra Festing appreciation and recognition of his sentiments of loyalty and devotion to the successor of Peter and his openness to humbly serving the good of the order and the church.”

The Order of Malta is made up of more than 13,500 knights and dames; about 50 of them are professed religious, having taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The grand master is elected for life from among the professed knights.

Festing’s offer to resign came after Pope Francis set up a commission to investigate Festing’s removal of the order’s grand chancellor, Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager.

A member of the commission told Catholic News Service Jan. 25 that Pope Francis received the commission report before meeting with Festing and asking for his resignation.

In a statement in December, the order said Boeselager was removed “due to severe problems which occurred during Boeselager’s tenure as grand hospitaller of the Order of Malta and his subsequent concealment of these problems from the Grand Magistry.” It was widely reported the problems had to do with the distribution of contraceptives to prevent HIV/AIDS in health clinics run by or funded by Malteser International, the order’s humanitarian relief agency.

Festing insisted the removal of Boeselager was an internal matter and, in letters leaked to the press, urged members not to cooperate with the Vatican commission.

In response, the Vatican published a statement Jan. 17 praising “the commendable work that members and volunteers” with the Order of Malta carry out around the world and it urged members to cooperate with the commission for the good of the order and the church.

Copyright © 2017 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.</s>ROME — After weeks of very public tensions with the Vatican, the head of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta accepted Pope Francis’ request that he submit his resignation.

The order’s communications office confirmed Jan. 25 that Fra Matthew Festing, the 67-year-old grand master, met with Pope Francis the day before and agreed to resign.

Festing, who has led the world’s largest chivalric order since 2008, will submit his resignation Jan. 28 to the order’s governing council, according to the communications office.

The Order of Malta is made up of some 13,500 knights and dames; more than 50 of them are professed religious, having taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The grand master is elected for life from among the professed knights.

Festing’s offer to resign came after Pope Francis set up a commission to investigate Festing’s removal of the order’s grand chancellor, Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager.

A member of the commission told Catholic News Service Jan. 25 that Pope Francis received the commission report before meeting with Festing and asking for his resignation.

In a statement in December, the order said Boeselager was removed “due to severe problems which occurred during Boeselager’s tenure as grand hospitaller of the Order of Malta and his subsequent concealment of these problems from the Grand Magistry.” It was widely reported the problems had to do with the distribution of contraceptives to prevent HIV/AIDS in health clinics run by or funded by Malteser International, the order’s humanitarian relief agency.

Festing insisted the removal of Boeselager was an internal matter and, in letters leaked to the press, urged members not to cooperate with the Vatican commission.

In response, the Vatican published a statement Jan. 17 praising “the commendable work that members and volunteers” with the Order of Malta carry out around the world and it urged members to cooperate with the commission for the good of the order and the church.</s>ROME (AP) – The Latest on the resignation of the Knights of Malta head (all times local):

3:40 p.m. – The Knights of Malta has summoned its top governing body for a special session to formally accept the resignation of its leader after the pope announced a takeover of the sovereign lay Catholic group.

The meeting is set for Saturday.

The Vatican announced it was taking over the order after the chief knight, Matthew Festing, openly defied Pope Francis in a public spat over condoms. Festing resigned on Tuesday and the Vatican announced it would name a papal delegate to run the order.

The Vatican’s intervention is extraordinary given the Knights of Malta isn’t a typical religious order like the Jesuits, but rather a sovereign entity under international law, one that has diplomatic relations with more than 100 countries, the Holy See included.

1:25 p.m. – The Vatican says Pope Francis will name a pontifical delegate to run the embattled Knights of Malta, effectively taking over the sovereign lay Catholic order after its leader resigned in a bitter dispute with the pontiff over condoms.

The move marks an extraordinary intervention of one sovereign state – the Holy See – into the governance of another – the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an ancient aristocratic order that runs a vast charity operation around the globe.

A statement from the Vatican said Francis accepted the resignation of the order’s grand master, Matthew Festing, which he had offered Tuesday.

The statement said the order’s governance would shift temporarily to the No. 2 “until the pontifical delegate is named.”

8:20 a.m. – The head of the Knights of Malta has resigned after entering into a public spat with Pope Francis over the ouster of a top official involved in a condom scandal.

Marianna Balfour, spokeswoman for the ancient lay Catholic order, told The Associated Press that Matthew Festing had met with the pope on Tuesday and offered his resignation.

In an email, Balfour said that “I can confirm this.”

Festing had refused to cooperate with a papal commission investigating his ouster of the grand chancellor, Albrecht von Boeselager, over revelations that the order’s charity branch had distributed condoms under his watch. Festing had cited the Knights’ status as a sovereign entity in refusing to cooperate.

The following video of Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger attending Pope Francis’ weekly audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Wednesday, January 25, 2017 was posted on The Associated Press YouTube channel:</s>(supersedes previous) Vatican City, January 25 - Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of the head of the Knights of Malta, Fra' Matthew Festing after a row over distributing condoms in Myanmar, the Vatican press office said on Wednesday. "Yesterday, January 24, Fra' Matthew Festing handed in his resignation during an audience with the Holy Father," the source said. "Today, January 25, the Holy Father accepted this resignation, expressing to Fra' Festing his appreciation and gratitude for his loyalty and devotion to the successor to Peter and readiness to humbly serve the good of the Order and the Church," the press office added. The Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), commonly known as the Knights of Malta, must now present his resignation to its supreme council, which is due to meet on Saturday for this purpose. Festing was reportedly asked by the pope to resign in relation to the December ouster of SMOM grand chancellor, Albrecht Freiherr, over revelations that the order's charity arm had distributed condoms in Myanmar under his watch. Freiherr's dismissal was reportedly backed by the pope's envoy to the order, conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke, against Francis' advice. The ouster led to a period of internal division within the order, culminating in Festing's meeting with the pope on Tuesday. SMOM, the smallest sovereign State in the world, runs a large charity-hospital organization around the world, and has recently provided humanitarian aid for countless refugees and migrants. The Knights of Malta, as they are more widely known, were founded on the Mediterranean in the 11th century as a military religious order like the Templars. They were removed from Malta by Napoleon. Headquartered in Palazzo Malta in Rome, their mission is summed up in their motto: "Tuitio Fidei et Obsequium Pauperum"; protecting the Catholic Church and serving those in need.</s>VATICAN CITY—The Vatican announced Wednesday it was taking over the embattled Knights of Malta in an extraordinary display of papal power after the leader of the sovereign lay Catholic order publicly defied Pope Francis in a dispute over condoms.The move is remarkable — and controversial — because it marks the intervention of one sovereign state, the Holy See, into the internal governing affairs of another, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an ancient aristocratic order that runs a vast charity operation around the globe.The Vatican said Matthew Festing, 67, offered to resign as the Knights’ grand master on Tuesday during an audience with the pope, and that Francis had accepted it on Wednesday. A Vatican statement said the Knights’ governance would shift temporarily to the order’s No. 2 "pending the appointment of the papal delegate."Festing had refused to co-operate with a papal commission investigating his decision to oust the order’s grand chancellor, Albrecht von Boeselager, over revelations that the Knights’ charity branch had distributed condoms under Boeselager’s watch.Festing had cited the Knights’ status as a sovereign entity in refusing to co-operate with the pope’s investigation. Many canon lawyers had backed him up, questioning the pope’s right to intervene in what was essentially an act of internal governance.Article Continued BelowThe naming of a papal delegate signals a Vatican takeover, harking back to the Vatican’s previous takeovers of the Legion of Christ and Jesuit religious orders when they were undergoing periods of scandal or turmoil.But those are religious orders that report directly to the Holy See. The Knights of Malta is a sovereign entity under international law, making the Vatican intervention all the more remarkable.The Order of Malta has many trappings of a sovereign state, issuing its own stamps, passports and license plates and holding diplomatic relations with 106 states, the Holy See included.</s>Vatican says Pope Francis to name delegate to run Knights of Malta, effectively taking over sovereign entity.
The Vatican City State announces that Pope Francis will name a Pontifical Delegate to head the Sovereign Military Order of Malta after Prince and Grand Master Matthew Festing's unexpected forced resignation in a spat over condoms.