Once again the remaining knights drifted around in search of a dwelling place; they established their capital successively in Crete, Messina, Baia, Viterbo, and Nizza. Finally, on March 24, 1530, they obtained from Emperor Charles V, in his capacity as king of Sicily, the island of Malta and adjacent islands as a “perpetual and free feud.” The only obligation attached to this transfer was that the knights should annually, on the feast of All Saints, offer a falcon or a hawk to the King of Sicily, whoever he might be. Thus the Order of Saint John became a feudatory of the kingdom of Sicily territorially, but as a religious order it continued dependent on the authority of the Holy See. From their key position in the Mediterranean, the knights watched the movements of the Turkish fleet and engaged in battle the corsairs from Tripoli and the other Barbary States. Twice a year the order equipped a “caravan,” namely a naval expedition, to ferret out pirates along the coastline of the Mediterranean. As in Rhodes, in Malta the knights sustained several attacks from the Turks, the most memorable of which was the “Great Siege” (1565). The knights were victorious on all occasions. However, in the eighteenth century a decline in spirit and in discipline set in. What the Turks failed to achieve, Napoleon did; on his way to Egypt, without striking a blow he captured the fortress of Malta, believed to be impregnable (June 12, 1798). The weak Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch soon resigned and the order established a provisional headquarters at Trieste which at the time was under Austria.
A peculiar situation then arose: an orthodox emperor made himself Grand Master of this thoroughly Catholic Order of St. John. Paul I of Russia, who for some time had in mind using the Hospitallers and their island bastion for political purposes, had managed to establish a grand priory in Russia. The Russian knights in 1798 elected Paul as Grand Master, but he died in 1801 without being able to do anything on behalf of the order. With England taking Malta from the French in 1800, the old capital was lost for good.
Upon the loss of Malta the order reached the lowest point in all its glorious history. The order’s headquarters shifted from Messina to Catania to Ferrara and finally in 1834 they were established in Rome. The knights had one more grand master after Paul I, but when he died in 1805, the Pope allowed them only to elect lieutenant grand masters who were to be ratified by him. This state of affairs continued for seventy-four years until Leo XIII by a Bull of March 29, 1879, re-established the office of grand master with headquarters in Rome.[12]
From then on the order regained part of its old vitality. It had lost its territorial sovereignty, military activities had ceased, but it now reverted to its original objective: obsequium pauperum. The order became again a welfare and charity organization. Looking back over its long history one might say that at first its master was the superintendent of a hospital, then he became a commanding army general (to which office he subsequently added that of an admiral), and in this age the grand master has become the president of an international Catholic White Cross which at times collaborates with the international Red Cross.
The order has built and maintains an impressive number of hospitals—in Italy alone there are 19 with a total of 5,290 beds; it takes care of a number of children’s homes, child centers and trade schools for abandoned children. During the two world wars, the order established military hospitals and had a number of ambulance trains and airplanes for the transport of wounded soldiers; in catastrophes such as earthquakes or other disasters it provides food and medical help. It also extends financial and medical assistance to the Catholic foreign missions.[13]
Expenses involved in these activities are paid out of the revenues from the remaining properties of the order and the contributions of its members throughout the world.
The present organization of the Order of Malta consists of three large categories, each subdivided into a number of ranks.[14] They are the Knights of Justice, who take the three monastic vows and form the strictly religious nucleus of the order; the Knights of Honour and Devotion who are required to furnish proof of ancient nobility; the Knights of Magistral Grace who are affiliated to the order and are somewhat reminiscent of the old class of sergeants-at-arms. Besides, there are three other groups: the Chaplains, Dames of Honour and Devotion, and the Donates. The grand master may bestow on persons outside the order the Cross of Merit of the Order of Malta, an honour which may be conferred also on non-Catholics and consists of five classes.
The Order of Malta is divided into five grand priories and fourteen national associations, including the “Association of Master Knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the United States of America.” Those knights who do not belong to any of the priories or associations depend directly on the grand master and are called Knights in Gremio Religionis.[15]
The Order of St. John, although deprived of its territory, retains its sovereign character. The palace of the grand master and the other houses in Rome are extra-territorial, that is to say enjoy the same privilege as that accorded to the other foreign embassies and legations; the order issues its own diplomatic passports and entertains diplomatic missions and legations in several countries.[16]
Recently the legal status of the Order of Malta in the Church has been defined with greater precision. Pope Pius XII, on Dec. 10, 1951, appointed a special tribunal of five cardinals, presided over by the Dean of the Sacred College, Cardinal Eugene Tisserant, in order to determine the nature of the order and the extent of its competence both as a sovereign and as a religious institution, as well as its relationship to the Holy See. After long discussions the commission of cardinals on Jan. 24, 1953, gave the following unanimous verdict:[17]