# Knights of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta -- commonly the Knights of Malta -- is a Catholic lay religious order and the world's oldest surviving chivalric order, tracing to a Jerusalem hospital around the time of the First Crusade. Uniquely, it is a subject of international law: it holds no territory yet maintains diplomatic relations with more than 100 states and permanent observer status at the UN. It appears in [[The Octopus]] frame as a sovereign-yet-Catholic transnational body with documented intelligence-world ties. ## Intelligence ties and the 2017 crisis CIA Director William Casey was a member, and counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton is widely cited as one -- real individual memberships that feed the frame. (The leap from "intelligence officials were members" to "the Order runs the CIA" is fringe conspiracy material and should be kept separate.) In 2016-17 the Order suffered a governance crisis when its traditionalist Grand Master, Matthew Festing, removed a senior officer over a Myanmar condom-distribution dispute; [[Pope Francis]] intervened in January 2017, reversed the removal, and forced Festing's resignation -- sidelining the Order's traditionalist patron Cardinal Raymond Burke. ## Epistemic status The Order's sovereign status, the Casey/Angleton memberships, and the 2017 Festing crisis are documented. Broad claims that the Order is a command node of Western intelligence are unproven. The 2017 episode is a real instance of [[Pope Francis]] overruling a traditionalist power center -- grist for the Bannon "wedge" narrative. ## See also - [[The Octopus]] - [[Opus Dei]] - [[Legatus]] - [[Vatican]]