It’s official: Burke to Malta

After the longest run-up, the least surprising papal move of the year: 

At Roman Noon this Saturday, the Pope named Cardinal Raymond Burke as patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, removing the Wisconsin-born prelate from his role as the church’s “chief justice” as head of the Apostolic Signatura, where he’s served since 2008.

…The wheels of the cardinal’s transfer from the church’s lead tribunal have been in motion for over a year. From the first months after Francis’ election, as Burke went unconfirmed by the new Pope at the Signatura, Whispers ops indicated the top canonist as a top choice to become Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre once Cardinal Edwin O’Brien reached the retirement age of 75 last April.

Much as that match would’ve killed two birds with one stone as the US boasts the lion’s share of the millennium-old order’s membership and Burke’s well-known homesickness for the States, the prospect would’ve inevitably been shot down by Francis’ domestic brain-trust, for whom even a Rome-based foothold on these shores for Burke was still too close for comfort. In the end, Burke now becomes the first non-European to serve as chief chaplain of the thousand-year-old Order of Malta, which is always headed not by a cleric, but a celibate layman elected in a Conclave who holds the title Sovereign Prince. (The current Prince-Grand Master is Fra Matthew Festing, the second Englishman to occupy the office.)

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