Matthew Festing

Fra' Robert Matthew Festing GCStJ OBE TD DL (30 November 1949 – 12 November 2021) was an English Roman Catholic official who was the Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta from 2008 until his resignation on 28 January 2017, following a dispute with the Vatican.

Family

Festing was the youngest of four sons born to Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, a Roman Catholic convert who became a Knight of Malta, and Mary Cecilia (née Riddell), the elder daughter of Cuthbert David Giffard Riddell of Swinburne Castle, Northumberland. His father was the grandson of Colonel Sir Francis Worgan Festing. His mother was from an English recusant family, descending from the Throckmorton baronets and Blessed Sir Adrian Fortescue, martyred in 1539. Until 2008, he was Sotheby's auction representative in Northumberland and held the rank of colonel in the Territorial Army. and in the 1998 Birthday Honours was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Boeselager appealed to Pope Francis, who appointed a five-member commission to look into perceived judicial irregularities in the circumstances of the dismissal. Festing refused to cooperate, describing the commission as an illegitimate intervention in the Order's sovereign affairs, accusing its members of a conflict of interest, and setting up his own internal commission. The Vatican, in turn, rejected what it said was an attempt to discredit members of the commission and ordered the leaders of the institution to cooperate with the inquiry.

In January 2017, Pope Francis asked Festing to resign, with the latter submitting his resignation on January 24. Cardinal Burke, the patron of the Order, tried to convince Festing to withdraw his resignation and keep fighting the Vatican. On 28 January 2017, the Order's Sovereign Council accepted Festing's resignation and re-instated Boeselager. Fra' Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein was chosen as Lieutenant ad interim and presided over the Sovereign Council that annulled the decrees establishing the disciplinary procedures against Boeselager as well as the suspension of his membership in the Order. Boeselager resumed his office as Grand Chancellor immediately.

In April 2017, Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, the temporary papal delegate to the Order, instructed Festing not to travel to Rome for the election of his successor. He wrote that many of the Order had "expressed their wish" that Festing not travel to Rome for the election as they felt his presence would "reopen wounds" and prevent a return to harmony. As it appeared that Festing ignored this order and arrived in Rome just before the meeting to elect a new Grand Master, the Vatican reconsidered and annulled the order. According to sources within the Order, this was because his absence as a professed knight could have invalidated the ballot.

Death

Festing suddenly collapsed after attending the profession of vows of Fra' Francis Vassallo, in Saint John's Co-Cathedral of Valletta on 4 November 2021. He died eight days later at hospital at the age of 71. His funeral Mass took place on 3 December at Saint John's Co-Cathedral, presided over by cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi and then he was buried in the crypt of that church next to his predecessors.

Ancestry

Chivalric orders

(12 June 1998) (5 May 2009)

45px Grand Cross of the Order of St. Charles (14 October 2009)

Bailiff Grand Cross of Justice with the Collar (2010) Knight Grand Cross of Justice (1994) Knight of Justice (1991)

National honours

Crown appointment of the United Kingdom

Honorary citizenship

Honorary Freeman of the City of Rapallo (Italy, 18 September 2008) Pompeii, Italy Birgu, Malta

Honorary academic degrees

Country Date School Degree 10 October 2009 Catholic University of America Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) 12 May 2014 John Cabot University Doctor of Public Service — Northumbria University