Knights of Malta – A State Inside the Vatican That Runs Suspicious and Influential Lobbies Around the World

The Knights of Malta returned to the spotlight again, after announcing on June 7, 2022, the death of its Supreme President, Marco Luzzago, at the age of 72, and the appointment of the Grand Commander, Ruy Goncalo do Valle Peixoto de Villas Boas, as the new Acting President until the election of a new religious chief and king.

The Knights of Malta is more like an organization located in several buildings within the Vatican in the Italian capital, Rome. It is a state without a people, and its membership includes 13.5 thousand people who call themselves knights.

It is managed by a council of 26 knights who help the president (the military cardinal) in the conduct of its affairs, and the first to occupy this position is the British, Andrew Bertie.

It calls itself the Sovereign Military Order of Malta or the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, and it is different from the state of Malta.

 

Remnants of Wars

The Knights of Malta is a religious organization of a military nature for the Knights, which says that it works to perpetuate the Christian faith and serve the Vatican, and claims that its main task is to serve the sick and to do charitable works.

The history of this country dates back to a Catholic group of remnants of the Crusades, called the Knights Hospitaller, but it is internationally recognized as a sovereign entity and is a member of the United Nations.

It also has official diplomatic relations with 103 countries and has ambassadors in these countries, including more than 28 Islamic countries.

But this dubious country, whose name is not officially mentioned except in connection with a few events in the world related to humanitarian work, hospital care, and facilitating the travel of Christian pilgrims to "Israel," is surrounded by many ambiguities and suspicions.

The emergence of the Knights of Malta began in Jerusalem around 1048, during the Fatimid era, as a charitable organization, founded by some Italian merchants, to care for sick Christian pilgrims in the hospital (Jerusalem Saint John) near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

These people continued to practice their work under the control of the Islamic State, and they were called Knights of the Hospital, to distinguish them from the Knights' bodies, which had appeared later in Jerusalem, such as the Knights Templar and others.

When the First Crusades broke out in 1097, and Jerusalem was captured, the head of the hospital, Gerard de Marti, established a separate organization called the Monks of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, and by virtue of their knowledge of the conditions of the country, they provided valuable assistance to the Crusaders.

They were then transformed into a military cavalry system thanks to Raymond du Puy (Marti's successor), who reconstituted the organization on an armed military basis and was blessed by Pope Innocent II in 1130.

With the Crusader occupation of Jerusalem, the organization's missions expanded to include providing military protection to Christians, and it received official recognition from Pope Paschal II in 1113, as a religious regime.

 

Different Transmission

Following the defeat of the Crusaders in Jerusalem, the fall of Acre in 1291, and the final expulsion of the Crusaders from the Levant, the Crusaders' cavalry organizations moved to transfer their activities to other fields.

As the Teutonic Knights (a German Christian nursing sect turned into the military) headed toward northern Europe, and the Knights Templar (military fanatics) migrated to the countries of southern Europe, especially France, where Philip IV later eliminated them (1307-1314).

As for the Hospitallers, they initially headed to the city of Tire and then to Cyprus in 1291, and later moved to the island of Rhodes, but the Ottomans expelled them from it in 1523; then they went to Malta and established their sovereign regime, which was associated with their name Knights of Malta until Napoleon Bonaparte expelled them from it in 1798.

Finally, they settled in Rome inside the headquarters of the Vatican, where the headquarters of the organization is currently located in the Italian capital.

Since its founding 970 years ago, many names have been used to identify the organization and its members.

The official name of the Knights of Malta is the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta.

However, abbreviations such as the Military Independent Knights of Malta, the Sovereign Knights of Malta, or the Knights of Malta are often used.

According to their constitution, the members of the Knights of Malta are divided into three classes, the members are to conduct their lives in an exemplary manner according to the teachings and principles of the Catholic Church, and to devote themselves to the activities of assistance offered by the order.

The members of the first class are recognized knights and clergymen, and the members of the second class are military monks, while the members of the third class are laymen who do not recognize religious vows but live according to the principles of the Church.

 

Suspicious Roles

The Knights of Malta is one of the most mysterious entities in history, which has made it the subject of many media, books, and films.

In addition to claiming that they do only charitable and nursing work, while facts and reports indicate undeclared goals for them, they openly reveal their hostility to Muslims as an extension of their Crusader history.

The most prominent person who exposed their anti-Islam roles at the present time was the American journalist, Seymour Hersh, during a lecture he gave at Georgetown University in the Qatari capital, Doha, on January 18, 2011.

“The US armed forces are directed and controlled by fundamentalist Christian crusaders who aim to convert mosques into churches,” Hersh said.

“General Stanley McChrystal, the retired commander of the Joint Special Operations Command and one-time commander of US forces in Afghanistan, is one of many senior US military officers who are members of radical Catholic organizations,” he emphasized.

He mentioned among these organizations, the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei—officially known as the Pontifical of the Holy Cross and the Work of God—a Catholic organization in Spain.

“Advisers to former President George W. Bush were operating under a policy of turning mosques into cathedrals and that they considered themselves the guardians of Christianity and were literally leading a crusade,” Hirsch also said.

“The US Joint Military Special Operations Command was infiltrated by fanatical Christians who believed that they should take on the task of completing the Crusades,” he stated.

In a report on what Hirsch meant about the Knights of Malta, the Foreign Policy magazine published a report on January 19, 2011, in which it said: “Members of the Knights of Malta enjoy an ambiguous presence in US foreign policy decision-making centers.”

“In 1988, the Chargé d'Affaires of Malta's embassy in Havana admitted that he was a double agent for both the CIA and Cuban intelligence,” the report stated.

In turn, journalist Jeremy Scahill said in his book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, the company's former president, Joseph Schmidt, a former inspector general at the US Department of Defense, expressed his pride in being a member of the Knights of Malta in his official biography.

“In addition to the missionary crusader attribute of the Knights of Malta, most of the mercenary soldiers in Iraq hold the citizenship of the state of the Knights of Malta,” he revealed.

Noting that 130,000 mercenaries participated in the occupation of Iraq by the American forces.

“Many of the company's managers belong to the Christian right-wing extremist that ran the United States after President Bush's rise to power in 2001, and all of them boast about their membership in the Knights of Malta,” he stated.

US magazine added that “Blackwater's contractors in Iraq (officially renamed XE) used symbols and signs similar to those of peer members such as the Knights Templar in the Middle Ages.”

 

Question Marks

Researchers Simone Biles and Marissa Santier, who specialize in researching the religious, social, and political context of the Roman Catholic Church, have previously revealed that Presidents Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush are among the most prominent members of the Knights of Malta.

Therefore, the researchers conclude that President Bush's statements after the September 11 attacks cannot be extracted from this context, especially when he declared a crusade against terrorism, prior to his invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Among the suspicious paradoxes is the presence of the names of Arab dictators in the records of the Knights of Malta, like the head of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, who appeared as a member of the Knights of Malta and holds the rank of Royal Francis Medal, according to an investigation by Al-Hayat newspaper on January 2, 2015.

The newspaper asked, “Did the Knights of Malta support the president of a criminal regime despite all its violations and public criticism directed at him by the international community since the Syrian people's uprising against him in 2011?”

“Conducting a historical search in the names and people of advanced political stature whose names appeared in the records of the Knights of Malta revealed the presence of famous names belonging to the organization,” it pointed out.

Most notably, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of former US President George W. Bush, as well as George Bush Jr., Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, and billionaire Rockefeller, two of the Kennedy family are Joseph and Ted, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, Juan Carlos, the former King of Spain, and Valéry Jacquard d'Estaing, the former president of France.