Matthew Festing

Family

Festing is 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 Francis Worgan Festing. His mother's family is an ancient English recusant family, descending from the Throckmorton baronets and Blessed Sir Adrian Fortescue, martyred in 1539. His three elder brothers are John Festing (a former High Sheriff of Northumberland), Major Michael Festing, and Andrew Festing (formerly President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters).

Education and career

Festing attended Ampleforth College, before going up to St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in Modern History. He was sponsored by the British Army in the rank of second lieutenant on a university cadetship whilst at Cambridge before being commissioned, on 23 July 1971, as an Ensign in the Grenadier Guards; his service number was 486330. Currently holding the rank of colonel in the Territorial Army, Festing has also served as the County Cadet Commandant of Northumbria Army Cadet Force.

Festing was a Deputy Lieutenant for Northumberland and, in the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours, HM Government appointed him Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Festing is Patron of the Sandhurst Foundation and Trustee to Northumbria Historic Churches. Until 2008, he was Sotheby's auction representative in Northumberland.

Order of Malta

Festing was admitted to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in 1977. In 1991, he took perpetual vows, becoming a Knight of Justice. From 1993 to 2008, he served as Grand Prior of England, the first in this office since 1815.

On 11 March 2008, Festing was elected Grand Master following a conclave-style meeting at the order's villa on the Aventine Hill in Rome. Only the third English Grand Master of the Order of Malta, he is the immediate successor to the second, Fra' Andrew Bertie, the first being Hugh de Revel in 1258–77.

Resignation

Festing resigned as prince and grand master in January 2017. Festing and the Holy See had been in dispute since December 2016, when Festing had dismissed the order's Grand Chancellor, Albrecht, Baron von Boeselager, for allowing the distribution of condoms in a medical project for the poor. 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. The papal commission was due to deliver its findings to the pope.

Cardinal Burke, the patron of the order, tried to convince Festing to withdraw his resignation and keep fighting the pope, these sources say. On 28 January 2017, the Order's Sovereign Council accepted Festing's resignation and re-instated Boeselager, a clear defeat for Burke.

The Sovereign Council accepted the resignation of Festing and named Fra' Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein as Lieutenant ad interim. The Sovereign Council presided over by the Lieutenant ad interim 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 Fra’ Festing not to travel to Rome for the election of his successor. He wrote that many of the Order had “expressed their wish” that Fra’ Festing not travel to Rome for the election on April 29th, 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 given order. According to sources within the order, this was because his absence as a professed knight could have invalidated the ballot.

Titles and style

The full title of Fra' Matthew from the 11 March 2008 until 28 January 2017 was His Most Eminent Highness Fra' Matthew Festing, Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, Most Humble Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ.

The Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta was the sovereign ruler of Malta from 1530 until 1798, and nowadays represents the Order's claim to sovereign status. The sovereign Prince was created ex officio a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1607 (as an honorary title, as the Prince and Grand Master was already a Head of State in his own right outside the Empire), as well as the style of Most Eminent Highness from the Pope in 1630, recognising his status as a Prince of the Church.

In the order of precedence in the Catholic Church Fra' Matthew was the highest-ranked officer following the Cardinals, and remained the only leader of an entity within the Catholic Church in modern times, apart from the Pope (as Sovereign of Vatican City State) and the Bishop of Urgell (as Co-Prince of Andorra), to be considered as an independent monarch; historically, many bishops and archbishops held sovereign-prince status.

Chivalric orders

National honours

Crown appointment of the United Kingdom

Honorary citizenship