Fra’ Matthew Festing, Grand Master of the Order of Malta who was toppled in a dispute over the place in the modern world of the ancient charitable order – obituary

Fra’ Matthew Festing, who has died aged 71, was the 79th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta.

The lay-led Order of Malta functions as a sovereign state and maintains formal diplomatic relations with 110 countries; established in the far-off days of the Crusades to protect and defend pilgrims to the Holy Land in particular, and the indigent and sick more generally, it now maintains a global humanitarian presence in the service of what it calls “our Lords the Poor”.

Historically recruited from the noble Catholic families in Burke’s Peerage and the Almanach de Gotha (dispensations are occasionally granted to other worthy candidates) the order’s most senior professed members continue to live under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Festing was only the third Englishman to lead the order in its 950 years of existence; Andrew Bertie was his immediate predecessor, and Hugh de Revel was elected in 1258. Festing would have served in office until death, had a bizarre turn of events not culminated in his resignation in 2017.

When he discovered that the Grand Chancellor of the order, Baron Albrecht von Boeselager, had overseen an aid project that had quietly distributed forbidden contraceptives, Festing dismissed him from his Sovereign Council, the order’s governing body. Boeselager, who denied knowing about the condom distribution scheme, appealed to Pope Francis, who instead asked Festing himself to resign, and Boeselager was reinstated shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile, the Cardinal Protector of the order, Raymond Burke, who supported Festing in the controversy, was also removed from his role. Cardinal Angelo Becciu was appointed instead as the Pope’s Special Delegate to the order, with particular responsibility for its spiritual and moral life; he resigned last year and is presently being tried at the Vatican on charges including fraud and embezzlement. 

Such intrusions into the affairs of another sovereign body were regarded in some quarters as an over-reach of the papal prerogative. Observers wondered – some with approval and some with dismay – whether Pope Francis’s actions were a manifestation of some of the priorities of his papacy. 

It seemed that battle lines had been drawn over whether the Order of Malta should continue its many international charitable activities as an ancient institution founded on prayer and good works – retaining, alongside its recognised effectiveness, its distinctive ceremonies complete with robes, uniforms and swords – or instead be run as a more professionalised body in the style of a modern NGO.

Festing, who had up to that point had defended robustly his order’s right to conduct its affairs independently of the Holy See, duly complied with the Pope’s request as a matter of religious obedience, and resigned, having led the Order of Malta for nearly a decade.

Born in Northumberland on November 30 1949, Robert Matthew Festing was the youngest son of Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing, a convert to Catholicism whose last appointment was as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Matthew’s mother, Mary Riddell, was from an old recusant family; one of his brothers is the portrait painter Andrew Festing.

After following his father to Egypt and Singapore, Matthew Festing went to Ampleforth then read history at St John’s College, Cambridge, before being commissioned into the Grenadier Guards.

Service in Northern Ireland and Belize followed, after which Festing became a professional art expert and Sotheby’s representative.

He joined the Order of Malta in 1977, taking solemn vows in 1991; when in 1993 the order’s English presence was formally restored after 450 years’ abeyance, he was appointed Grand Prior. With grit and distinction, he led the order’s humanitarian efforts in the war-torn Balkans; on safer ground, he regularly served alongside the ranks of volunteers supporting the sick and disabled on pilgrimage to Lourdes.

His expert knowledge of the work of the Order of Malta was prodigious; when Andrew Bertie died in 2008, Festing was swiftly elected to succeed him. The new Grand Master bade farewell to his auction house on becoming a reigning sovereign; it cannot have happened often, even at Sotheby’s.

Moving into his new headquarters on the Via Condotti in Rome, between the Corso and the Spanish Steps, he remained the Englishman abroad: although his work took him all over the globe, he detested the unrelenting Italian heat. The coolness of the order’s summer palace on the Aventine Hill was only relative, and he continued to return to Northumberland for quiet recreation when he could.

Bertie had embraced wholeheartedly the elegant if somewhat lonely austerity of the Palazzo Malta, with its genteel formality and meals served by footmen in livery. Despite Festing’s own keen sense of tradition, if there were no diplomatic guests to be entertained at dinner-time he was often to be found eating heartily in one of the local trattorie. He was a good cook himself, and his enormous frame and booming patrician voice sat comfortably with a kind and avuncular bonhomie. He had an immense capacity for making people laugh and for friendship.

At the Vatican, the Grand Master of the Order of Malta ranks with the cardinals – the office had acquired all the trappings and privileges of monarchy by the end of the 17th century – nevertheless Festing discharged his duties with quiet and unfussy piety. He wore his Catholicism like an old jumper, and drew particular spiritual nourishment from the old Latin Mass, which Pope Francis has also now restricted.

At the same time he delighted in the order’s Ruritanian customs and its many historic quirks; as the head of the oldest institution on earth to have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, he invariably occupied seat A1 at ceremonies in St Peter’s Square, to the chagrin of some prelates who felt that the honour should be theirs.

Festing held the rank of colonel in the Territorials, was a Deputy Lieutenant of Northumberland, and was appointed OBE in 1998.

After his resignation, Festing retired quietly to his parents’ home in his beloved Northumberland. Although saddened by the situation, he remained an active member of his order. He was attending the solemn profession of one of his brethren in Malta (the first knight to attain the order’s highest grade there since its displacement from the island by Napoleon in 1798) when he was suddenly taken ill.

At the invitation of the Maltese government he will be buried in the historic Grand Masters’ crypt at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta. There his mortal remains will join those of 11 of his distant predecessors.

Fra’ Matthew Festing, born November 30 1949, died November 12 2021