Santiago & "Pilar"; Templar's heirs

[Gene Silva]

Rosina Lila wrote....

The Santiago newspapers also report that Prince Frey Andrew Bertie,  the chief of state of Malta,  a Cardinal,  and the Grand Master of the Malta Order, arrived in Santiago yesterday with 225 Knights and Dames of Malta, from several countries, to pay homage to the Apostle  and to conduct a series of seminars with the thesis that the Templars have perdured over a millennium through various organizations worldwide.

    Frey Andrew Bertie is not a Cardinal. He is not selected by the Pope to serve as a "Prince of the Church". He is elected by the Council of his Order albeit that election is routinely confirmed by the Pontiff because "Malta" is one of three surviving non-Pontifical (that is, independent) religious orders of ancient origin. This arrangement can be traced to the year 1607 when the Grand Master of St John (i.e. "Malta") was first granted the title "Prince of the Holy Roman Empire" by Emperor Rudolph II. That was an honorific gesture. In 1630, Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644) followed suit by according the Grand Master a rank equal to that of a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, but this was done essentially for diplomatic purposes. In short, he has had the dignity and status of the office but the Grand Master is not, and never has been, a Cardinal, either de facto or de jure. 

It is gratifying that the Knights of Malta have also "Dames" and that they come from several countries.  Personally, I have a very soft  spot in my heart for the Templars. I'd like to know how one goes about joining a society that remembers and honors them. 

There are many existing groups that claim some connection to the Templars. You may believe what you wish, but none has ever demonstrated even a remote connection to the true Order of that name. The real Templars were suppressed by Pope Clement V in the year 1312. That means the charter (Bullium and apostolate) that had been issued to them by Pope Innocent II in 1139 was withdrawn and they ceased to exist. As a consequence, the present day Order of St. John and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepoulchre of Jerusalem are the only remaining chivalric orders under Papal protection whose mission approximates that of the Templars. The Teutonic Knights is a third such Order to have reached modern times but it has admitted only religious since 1929. Admission to all three is not the result of application but of sponsorship by a responsible authority except in rare instances.



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