This is a delightful echo of history but also a sound idea that needs to be honored and seriously considered. It is obvious in the modern world that an invitation to actually join this order or any such like order is an invitation to conduct philanthropy. Yet it is also true that philanthropy is almost a recently popular idea amount the newly enriched of the present world.
Engaging the state in providing honors for this clearly beneficialbehavior is extremely attractive and should be encouraged andpoliced. Medieval honors are out of time and place but in a cashpoor system it was a currency that worked. A renewal of honors isclearly beneficial in this time and place in order to reward andstrongly encourage generosity.
And bye the bye, there is no surer way to gain status with money thanto be able to give it away. Hiding it in off shore bank accountsdoes not cut it.
Ancient order ofthe Knights of Malta confronts modern world as it marks 900 years
By NicoleWinfield
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/ancient-order-knights-malta-confronts-modern-world-marks-161604160.html
Prince and GrandMaster of the Knights of Malta — bounds into the sitting room ofhis magnificent Renaissance palazzo sweaty and somewhat disheveled,and asks an aide if he should take off his sweater to bephotographed.
Garrulous and self-effacing, Festing embodies some of the paradoxes of a fabled Catholic religious order that dates from the medieval Crusades: Steeped in European nobility and mystique, the order's mission is humility and charity — running hospitals, ambulance services and old folks' homes around the globe. It has many trappings of a country, printing its own stamps, coins, license plates and passports, and yet — a stateless state — it rules over no territory.
The Sovereign MilitaryOrder of Malta's world headquarters, down the block from the SpanishSteps and with an Hermes boutique on the corner, features receptionrooms draped in oil portraits of grand masters past and a gem of achapel where King Juan Carlos of Spain was baptized by the futurePope Pius XII. On the ground floor, it runs a health clinic that,while private, provides free services for anyone who can't pay.
"It is, I suppose, a series of contradictions," Festing told The Associated Press ahead of the order's 900th birthday this week. "I'm on the inside of it, so it doesn't seem to be contradictory to me, but maybe it is."
And as the SovereignMilitary and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes andof Malta, as the group is officially called, celebrates theanniversary on Feb. 9 with a procession through St. Peter's Square, aMass in the basilica and an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, theancient order is confronting some very modern-day issues.
Once drawn exclusivelyfrom Europe's nobility, the order is trying to shed its image as apurely rich man's club while still tapping the world's wealthy tofund its charitable work. And though its military past is well behindit, the order is waging real legal battles to fend off what it saysare impostors seeking to piggyback on its name to con people out ofmoney.
Festing, a 63-year-old Briton and former Sotheby's auctioneer, is expansive about the unusual attributes of his organization of 13,500 Knights and Dames who make promises to be good Christians and fund the order's humanitarian work.
"On the one hand it's a sovereign entity. On the other hand it's a religious order. On the other hand it's a humanitarian organization. It's a complicated mixture of things," he says in an interview in the gold silk brocaded state drawing room between meetings with parting Vatican nuncios and visiting ministers, diplomatic receptions and silent prayer.
The order traces its history to the 11th century with the establishment of an infirmary in Jerusalem that cared for people of all faiths making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. It is the last of the great lay chivalrous military orders like the Knights Templars that combined religious fervour with fierce military might to protect and expand Christendom from Islam's advance during the Crusades.
In February 1113, Pope Paschal II issued a papal bull recognizing the order as independent from bishops or secular authorities. That "birth certificate," as Festing calls it, is the legal basis for asserting the order's sovereignty and the reason for Saturday's anniversary celebrations at the Vatican.Festing himself is a "Professed Knight" — the highest rank of members who take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The poverty vow seems a bit relative in this context: Knights on the order's governing council have their own private apartments inside the palace, complete with a valet and driver for cars that carry either diplomatic plates or the order's own SMOM plates. Wine from the order's own vineyards is often served.
Pope Benedict XVI isamong the professed knights, though he's an exception since professedknights aren't ordained priests and traditionally descend from nobleblood.
Festing, whose family traces their ancestry to 14th- and 16th-century knights, was elected grand master in 2008. It's a title he holds for life and is equivalent to the rank of cardinal, though he can't vote in a conclave to elect a pope.
Currently there areabout 60 professed knights and Festing hopes to increase theirnumbers as he seeks to expand the rank-and-file base to a youngergeneration of equally Catholic but not necessarily noble classesaround the globe.
"It's not exactlyout of date, but you can't maintain that in the 21st century,"he says. "In general terms, in the old countries of Europe, wemaintain the nobiliary requirement to an extent. But only to anextent. But in places like Australia, Central America, North America,Southeast Asia, it's all done on a different basis."
Members are still expected to chip in when natural disasters strike or wars erupt. Contributions in the tens of thousands of dollars are not unusual. Members also volunteer, bringing the sick to the shrine at Lourdes or pitching in at a one of the order's clinics, like the maternity hospital it runs in Bethlehem just a few steps from Jesus' traditional birthplace, where most of the patients are Muslim.
Even though it's aCatholic aid group — whose origins date from the Crusades — theorder works in several Muslim countries, including Pakistan andSyria. "We do not hide that we are Christian, but we do notproselytize. That is impossible," said the order's healthminister, Albrecht von Boeselager.
One perk of membershipin the top ranks, reserved for men only, is the fabulous uniform:bright-red military-style jacket, with sword, spurs and epaulettesfor official duties, a dark cloak with a white, eight-pointed MalteseCross on the front for religious services.
All told, 98,000members, employees and volunteers work in aid projects in 120countries; the overall annual operating budget can run to euro 200million, Festing says.
"We certainly don't want to be, and in fact we're not a sort of rich man's club," Festing insists. "To a sort of an extent you could say, 'Well maybe they are, slightly.' But that's not the basis of it. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten in."
That elite reputation, however, combined with the order's neutral and apolitical relief work, has earned it a level of prestige that few organizations can match. Governments, the European Union and U.N. agencies finance the order's humanitarian operations; it has observer status at the United Nations and diplomatic relations with 104 countries — many in the developing world where such ties can help smooth the delivery of aid.
But the prestige hascome with a price: Copycat orders have sprung up claiming to be theKnights of Malta or an offshoot that may or may not legitimatelytrace its origins to the group. These "false orders" preyon people eager to contribute to a Catholic charity thinking it'ssanctioned by the Holy See.
The con jobs aresometimes so good that even the Vatican has been fooled. In October,the Vatican issued a public reminder that it recognizes only twoancient equestrian orders — the Order of Malta and the EquestrianOrder of the Holy See Sepulcher of Jerusalem — after a grouppurporting to be the knights obtained approval to host a ceremonywithin the Vatican walls, Festing said.
"It was entirelyinnocent," on the part of the Vatican, said Festing. "Butit wasn't actually us. It was somebody else."
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