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With 13,500 knights and dames, and more than 80,000 volunteers, the Knights of Malta maintain observer status at the United Nations and diplomatic relations with 104 countries.
With 13,500 knights and dames, and more than 80,000 volunteers, the Knights of Malta maintain observer status at the United Nations and diplomatic relations with 104 countries. CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz, Long Island Catholic

Order of Malta celebrates nine centuries of service

By 
  • February 15, 2013

TORONTO - When you're 900 years old there are no rash, impulsive decisions to change. But the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta know that change is good, said Roman Ciecwierz.

The vice president of the Canadian Association of the Sovereign Order of Malta was one of 4,000 in Rome for the 900th anniversary of Pope Paschal II's bull Pie Postulatio Voluntatis, which placed the order under the protection of the Holy See Feb. 15, 1113.

"That's kind of the cool thing about the order is that it really defies time. Service to the sick and the poor is never out of fashion," Ciecwierz told The Catholic Register on his way to catch a flight to Rome. "It's the same essential calling that we all have out of baptism. It really hasn't changed."

What's changed are a few small concessions to the modern innovation of democracy. Until the middle of the 20th century a knight had to be able to prove noble birth. That pretty much left out everybody outside of Europe.

"It was probably slower coming than you would have thought," said Ciecwierz. "The order eventually realized that if it wanted to expand throughout the world, staying to a strict only-nobility entrance was not really that practical."

The Knights of Malta got around the nobility problem by creating a second class of members called "knights in obedience." Like the knights of noble birth, knights in obedience make vows to both the Church and the order.

The Knights of Malta run health care and social services around the world.

With almost a third of the order gathered in Rome for the 900th anniversary, the Knights also held an international conference to review the order's spirituality, communications and diplomacy.

The "new poor" created by unemployment and economic stagnation in Europe, or by war and political crisis in the Middle East and Africa, are a priority for the knights, said Albert Boeselager, the order's minister of health and international co-operation, in a release.

With 13,500 knights and dames, and more than 80,000 volunteers, the once powerful military order of chivalry today maintains observer status at the United Nations and diplomatic relations with 104 countries. Known for its tradition of hospitality, the order establishes hospitals and works with refugees.

 

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