("Quid coniuratio est?")
KNIGHTS OF MALTA
(Source for the following is an article from Covert Action, Winter 1986, "The Sovereign Military Order of Malta," by Francoise Hervet.)
"Already in existence at the time of the first Crusade in 1099, in 1113 the Order of St. John was given its independence by Pope Pascal II, permitted to elect its own Grand Master, and soon the Order began military participation in the Crusades along with the Knights Templar and Teutonic Knights. The Order of St. John recruited successfully among the European aristocracy and soon controlled extensive estates throughout the continent, assimilating those previously belonging to the Knights Templar which it had helped crush during the first two decades of the 14th century, with the Templar leadership burned alive as heretics."
The Order was driven from Jerusalem in 1187, fled to Acre, Cyprus, and finally to Rhodes. At Rhodes they set up a military dictatorship and for the first time were a sovereign territory. By 1530 they were driven from Rhodes and moved their headquarters to Malta. On that island they built a powerful naval force and fought many naval actions. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) was a major military force in the Mediterranean until their defeat by Napoleon in 1789. The Order was given protection by Russian Emperor Paul I, and by 1834 had moved its headquarters to Rome with help from Pope Leo XIII.
The American Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (Knights of Malta, SMOM) was founded in 1927. "By 1941 Francis Cardinal Spellman was listed as the 'Grand Protector' and 'Spritual Advisor' of the Order, with John J. Raskob as Treasurer. Members included John Farrell, then President of U.S. Steel, Joseph P. Grace, and John D. Ryan. In 1934 Raskob, inspired by the French fascist Croix de Feu, and working closely with Morgan Bank's John Davis, had been a principal financier in the plot to organize a fascist coup in the U.S. The plan failed when General Smedley Butler, who had been set up to lead the project, denounced it."
His Eminence Cardinal Spellman, "Grand Protector" of the Knights of Malta, worked with Pope Pius XII to help Nazi war criminals escape justice. According to Frederic Laurent (*L'Orchestre Noir. Pairs: Editions Stock, 1978),
All studies [of the post-WWII nazi networks] have shown the determining role played by the Catholic Church in the flight of war criminals. Since April 1943, following negotiations between Pius XII and the ultra reactionary American archbishop Francis Spellman, the Holy See became the clandestine center of Anglo-American espionage in Italy. This collaboration in fact had begun the previous year... between Earl Brennan, a veteran of the American State Department and Gian Battista Montini, at the time a bishop and Under-Secretary of State at the Vatican. This close collaboration between the future [Pope] Paul VI and the American secret services continued after the war through the [CIA] intermediary James Angleton...
When the victorious Americans entered Rome in June of 1944, chief-General Mark Clark was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. On December 27, 1946 James Angleton received the Croci Al Merito Seconda Classe from the Knights of Malta. "On November 17, 1948 SMOM awarded one of its highest honors, the Grand Cross of Merit, to Reinhard Gehlen, the nazi chief of intelligence on the Soviet front. He was subsequently installed by the Americans as the first chief of West Germany's equivalent of the CIA, the Bundesnachtrichtdienst (BND: federal secret service), under West German Chancellor Adenauer, a devout Catholic who had received the Magistral Grand Cross personally from SMOM Grand Master Prince Chigi." In 1956, Clare Booth Luce of the Time magazine empire became a "Dame of Malta." (Clare Booth Luce is on the board of the Rev. Sun-Moon's Washington Times newspaper.) Former CIA Director John McCone is shown to be a member of the Knights of Malta by their 1980 list. (The article by Hervet, used as the source for this information, has many other noteworthy persons listed as belonging to the Vatican military order of SMOM. The article should still be available from Prevailing Winds Research. I have their phone number as 805-566-8016 or write to PO Box 23511, Santa Barbara, CA 93121.)
"Freemasonry generally purports to be hostile to Catholicism, and conversely, the Vatican has at various times forbidden Catholics to join Masonic organizations. Nevertheless, in December of 1969 an exclusive meeting was held in the Rome office of Count Umberto Ortolani, the Ambassador of the Order of Malta to Uruguay, who has been called 'the brains' behind the fascist P-2 Masonic Lodge, which had been established in the mid-1960s. In addition to Ortolani, the meeting included only Licio Gelli, Roberto Calvi, and Michele Sindona."
The article from which the above has been taken is several pages long. Interested readers are referred to that article, "The Sovereign Military Order of Malta" by Francoise Hervet. (Covert Action, Winter 1986; or article may be available from Prevailing Winds, see phone and address listed previously in this issue of CN.)
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