An ultra conservative movement in the US which has links to the Evangelical Churches and to conservative economists, is behind the opposition to Pope Francis according Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager.
He is the recently reinstated Grand Chancellor of the Order of Malta.
“What the pope says about the world economy naturally angers them and they are very capable of making their voices heard in the Vatican,” Boeselager said.
On December 6th Matthew Festing, a former Grenadier Guardsman from Northumbria in England and at that time Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, dismissed von Boeselager who was his grand chancellor.
von Boeselager had refused to step down over claims, which he, von Boeselager, denies, that he allowed the distribution of condoms in Myanmar.
Festing subsequently resigned as the head of the order Jan. 25, following a meeting with the pope the previous day.
In an interview published March 4 in the German daily Die Welt von Boeselager said it was quite obvious that there were hardliners in the Church who feared that Francis was watering down church teaching on marriage and the family.
They also rejected his stance on economic matters and the distribution of wealth.
He insisted that the Order of Malta had been drawn into a controversy that did not really concern the order itself.
“Only a few days ago Cardinal Raymond Burke once again underlined that anyone who had a high office in the Catholic Church and tolerated the distribution of condoms must step down,” Boeselager noted.
“The accusation that I distributed condoms or tolerated their distribution is simply untrue.”
“But quite apart from that, Burke is not only slandering me but is also indirectly attacking the Holy Father for protecting someone who distributes condoms,” he charged.
The interim leader of the Knights of Malta has said that it was primarily U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke who touched off the recent dispute between the Knights of Malta and the Vatican.
In an interview with an Austrian newspaper last month Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein said it was Burke, and not the order’s leader at the time, who demanded the resignation of von Boeselager.
After the original publication of this story, the cardinal issued a statement disputing Hoffmann von Rumerstein’s account and said it was “not accurate.”
“I had no authority to ask the Grand Chancellor to resign,” Burke told the National Catholic Register. “To be frank, I am stunned by what Hoffmann von Rumerstein states.”
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