An ancient chivalric order led by a British former Guards officer has dismissed as “irrelevant” an investigation launched by Pope Francis into the dismissal of a senior knight, in an increasingly bitter row with the Vatican.
The Pope announced before Christmas that he had set up a commission of inquiry into a controversial decision by the head of the Order of Malta, Cambridge-educated Matthew Festing, to sack one of his deputies, Albrecht von Boeselager.
Mr von Boeselager, a German aristocrat whose title was Grand Chancellor, was accused of allowing a branch of the charitable organisation to distribute tens of thousands of condoms in Myanmar, in contravention of Catholic teaching.
Fra’ Matthew Festing said the Order would follow the Pope at this ‘complex and difficult time’