B.C. Catholic writer J.P. Sonnen is seen shortly after being invested as a Knight of Malta in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City Nov. 3. (Courtesy J.P. Sonnen)
NEW YORK—In early November I had the privilege of being invested in a ceremony of great dignity as a knight of the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta.
The order is also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) or simply the Order of Malta.
The celebration was held in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City in a deeply moving centuries-old rite that draws annually participants from across North America and beyond.
The cathedral makes a fitting background as the largest neo-Gothic Catholic cathedral in North America. Completed in 1878, it is considered a powerful symbol of American Catholicism – so massive it takes up a whole city block in Midtown Manhattan.
As someone who frequently travels to the Holy Land, Lourdes, Rome, and the Vatican, over the years I experienced a gradual exposure to the many faces of the order through its multi-faceted charities and ambassadors.
The Order of Malta is a lay religious order, by tradition military, chivalrous, and nobiliary.
It was founded originally as a monastic community inspired by St. John the Baptist in the 11th century. Today it is the world's oldest surviving chivalric order with about 13,500 knights, dames, and auxiliary members.
The mission of the order is summed up in its Latin motto: Tuitio Fidei et Obsequium Pauperum (nurturing, witnessing, and protecting the faith and serving the poor and the sick).
The government of the order is headed by a Prince and Grand Master who acts as religious superior and sovereign. He devotes himself entirely to the growth of the order’s works and serves as an example in religious observance to all members.
The history of the order began in Jerusalem and over time moved to the Greek island of Rhodes, then Malta, and finally to the city of Rome.
The order arose originally from a group of hospitallers who sought to provide medical care to assist and shelter pilgrims in the Holy Land. The original enterprise was known as the Hospice of St. John of Jerusalem.
Later, the enterprise was augmented by a military service to protect pilgrims and the sick and to defend Christian civilization in the East.
In the year 1113 Pope Pascal II gave formal acknowledgement as a religious order. Before the loss of the island of Malta to Napoleon in 1798, all knights were religious, having taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
According to the order’s Constitutional Charter and Code, “The purpose of the Order is the promotion of the glory of God through the sanctification of its members, service to the faith and to the Holy Father, and assistance to one’s neighbour, in accordance with its ancient traditions.”
True to the divine precepts and to the admonitions of our Blessed Lord and guided by the teachings of the Catholic Church, the order affirms and propagates the Christian virtues of charity and brotherhood.
The order carries out various charitable works for the sick, the needy, and refugees without distinction of religion, creed, race, origin, or age.
The order runs humanitarian, medical, and social projects in 120 countries and is especially involved in helping victims of armed conflicts and natural disasters by providing medical assistance and distributing medicines and basic life-saving items.
Social assistance programs help the homeless in developed and developing countries and care for people often pushed to society’s fringes, including the disabled, elderly, and unborn.
The order’s institutional tasks are especially carried out by hospitaller works, including social and health assistance, first aid, as well as bringing aid to victims of natural disasters and of war. This aid includes tending to the spiritual well-being of those inflicted.
To better achieve these charitable tasks, the order has established various dependent organizations in accordance with national laws, international conventions, and agreements with states.
Funds come from members and private and public donations and vary according to different countries, types of projects, and needs. Resources for hospitals and medical activities usually come from agreements stipulated with national health and social systems of states.
In developing countries, activities and relief services are often backed by grants from governments or other international organisations.
Today efforts have been particularly focused on the suffering Syrian population.
The order is not an NGO. It is, rather, a sovereign subject of international law and exercises sovereign functions; legislative, executive and judicial functions are reserved to the competent bodies of the order.
The order maintains diplomatic relations with more than 100 states, maintaining embassies with the exchange of ambassadors. It has United Nations permanent observer status, enters into treaties, and even issues its own passports, mints its own coins, and produces its own postage stamps.
Diplomatic relations allow the order to intervene in a spirit of timely and effective humanitarian aid in the event of natural disasters and armed conflicts.
Due to its status as neutral, apolitical, and independent, and due to its humanitarian role, the order is able to intervene on an international level as a crucial mediator in disputes.
The order is the only remaining example of a sovereign entity that lacks territory. It moved permanently to Rome in 1834.
It has two institutional seats in Rome, granted extraterritorial rights, similar to embassies. One is the Magistral Palace in the Palazzo Malta on Via dei Condotti, 68 – where the Grand Master resides and the government bodies meet.
The second is the Magistral Villa on the Aventine Hill, which hosts the Grand Priory of Rome and the embassy of the order to the Italian Republic.
The order is a legal entity recognized by the Vatican. In accordance with the Code of Canon Law, the churches and conventual institutions of the order are directly subject to the Holy See.
The Pope appoints as his representative to the order a cardinal to whom is conferred the title of Cardinalis Patronus. This honour includes special faculties and has the task of promoting the spiritual interests of the order and its members as well as promoting relations between the Holy See and the order.
The flag of the order is recognized the world over. It bears usually the white eight-pointed cross (its origins are from the Duchy of Amalfi) on a red field or, sometimes, a white Latin cross on a red field.
Members of the order are divided into three classes with various categories of membership. The first class (Knights of Justice and professed conventual chaplains) have made religious vows.
These Knights profess the evangelical counsels, thus aspiring to perfection according to the Gospel. They are religious according to Canon Law, but are not obliged to live in community. Requisites for admission are strict and members are admitted by invitation.
Volunteers are most welcome and number over 80,000, belonging to 33 volunteer corps; many of them medical personnel.
The order operates through 12 priories, 47 national associations, one worldwide relief agency, as well as numerous hospitals, medical centres, and foundations. There are 25,000 employees.
Members of the order oblige themselves to strive for the perfection of Christian life in conformity with the obligation of their state, in the spirit of the order.
All members conduct their lives in an exemplary manner in conformity with the teachings and precepts of the Church and devote themselves to the charitable activities of the order, according to the provisions of the code.
The Order of Malta is active in Vancouver with various charitable initiatives, including an eye clinic for the needy in East Vancouver, which has also reached out to migrant workers in the Fraser Valley.
J.P. Sonnen is a tour operator and history docent with Vancouver-based Orbis Catholicus Travel.