There are few grander titles than the Grand Prior of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and it would be hard to find more fabulous regalia (more properly, choir dress) – not too long ago, it boasted a bicorn hat. The man who occupies this grandiloquent position in England is Fra’ Max Rumney, to all appearances a tall, gentle media lawyer, 54. Its correct title, incidentally, is The Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta – which pretty well encapsulates its history.
It was established to care for poor and sick pilgrims in the Holy Land after the First Crusade, and following the fall of Jerusalem its history has been of successive retreats – its defence of Rhodes was glorious – until finally Napoleon expelled the Order from Malta, en route to Egypt. It now has the status of a “sovereign entity”, which can be handy when it seeks to do charitable work in disputed areas like Burma or Ukraine.
It’s the only “military” order which has retained its original structure, though nowadays lawyers like Fra’ Max outnumber soldiers in its ranks. Once you had to be a nobleman; he says cheerfully that in previous times he wouldn’t have qualified. Well, it would have been the Order’s loss.
One of the patrons of the Order is St John the Baptist. Fra’ Max wonders aloud what this ascetic preacher would have made of the uniforms and banners. “Actually”, he says cheerfully, “we know exactly what he would have made of it”.
Still the members of the Order care for the sick and the poor. In London, they run soup kitchens which serve hot meals rather than dispiriting sandwiches, and the atmosphere is, says Fra’ Max, “always convivial”. Every year they conduct a pilgrimage to Lourdes with the sick.
It was on one of these pilgrimages that he was drawn to join the Order by the combination of spirituality and practical help for the sick. “I am a bachelor, and I never felt a vocation to the priesthood,” he reflects, “so I was particularly drawn to this way of life which enables one to live in the world but to serve our Lord in the sick and the poor and to defend the faith.”
So he became a professed knight, taking religious vows. Before taking the vow of poverty, he put his assets in trust. “I don’t have any control over them,” he says. “The idea is that we shouldn’t be a drain upon the Order. We’re called on to observe the Evangelical Counsels, including poverty. That means, you make do with whatever you’ve got.”
How do you defend the faith nowadays when you can’t fight for it? “You defend it by being overtly good,” he says simply. “You take the Catholic faith into places where you can’t normally find it.” In his case, he is one of two people of faith in his firm. “The other chap is a Muslim convert.”
There are different classes of members. There are 36 professed religious in the whole world – all men, including seven in England, of whom he is one – who make solemn vows. They are supported by 300 Knights, Dames and chaplains in England, 40 of whom make promises of obedience to the order.
They pay £2000 on joining and £600 a year to support the Order’s work. Doesn’t that put off poorer recruits? Fra’ Max says that they’re lifting the requirement for a financial contribution from would-be professed knights: “These young men will be formed in the teachings of the order, given training and the Order will pay for them”.
Recently the Order attracted attention when its last Lieutenant, the head of the Order, died. Pope Francis replaced him temporarily with his own appointment, the Canadian Fra’ John Dunlap as Lieutenant. The solemnly-professed knights will soon vote on a Grand Master, which will either be Fra’ John, the Pope’s man, or one of the other two names who will be on the ballot paper.
Recent papal interventions in the life of the Order of Malta have caused enormous controversy, but Fra’ Max seems unperturbed by it all. He gets on rather well with the acting Lieutenant: “He’s Canadian, so it’s rather easier to communicate with than with his predecessors who were Italian,” he says. In fact he’s glad that the Pope takes an interest in the order; one reason, he thinks, is that it engages laypeople.
But it is the professed knights, like Fra’ Max, who are central to the Order. There are only 36 left, “many of them old”. The imperative now is to attract recruits. So if you are a Catholic who wants to defend the Church and care for the poor and sick while living in the world, consider joining the Order of Malta. Perhaps you’ll be called to be a solemnly-professed knight. As I may have mentioned, the regalia is perfectly lovely, too.
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