Sovereign Military Order of Malta | Wikipedia audio article
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Date: 2018-11-10

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Sovereign Military Order of Malta

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SUMMARY
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The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta (Italian: Sovrano militare ordine di Malta; Latin: Supremus Ordo Militaris Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani Rhodius et Melitensis), also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) or the Order of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious order traditionally of military, chivalrous and noble nature.It is the continuation of the medieval Order of Saint John, also known as the Knights Hospitaller, under international law.
As a chivalric order, it was founded c. 1099 by the Blessed Gerard in Jerusalem.
As a subject of international law, it is an establishment of the 19th century, recognized at the Congress of Verona of 1822, and since 1834 headquartered 
in Palazzo Malta in Rome.
The order is led by an elected Prince and Grand Master.
Its motto is: Tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum, "Defence of the (Catholic) faith and assistance to the poor".  The order venerates as its patroness the Virgin Mary, under the title "Our Lady of Mount Philermos".
The headquarters of the Order of Saint John had been located in Malta from 1530 until 1798. It was technically a liege of the kingdom of Sicily, holding Malta in exchange for a nominal fee, but it declared independence in 1753.
It was expelled from Malta under French occupation in 1798, and during 1805–1812, much of its possessions in Protestant Europe were confiscated, resulting in the fragmentation of the order into a number of Protestant branches, since 1961 united under the umbrella of the Alliance of the Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem.
The Congress of Vienna of 1815 confirmed the loss of Malta, but the Congress of Verona in 1822 guaranteed the continued existence of the Catholic order as a sovereign entity. The seat of the order was moved to Ferrara in 1826 and to Rome in 1834, the interior of Palazzo Malta being considered sovereign territory of the order. The grand priories of Lombardy-Venetia and of Sicily were restored in 1839/41. The office of Grand Master was restored by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, after a vacancy of 75 years, confirming Giovanni Battista Ceschi a Santa Croce as the first Grand Master of the restored Order of Malta.
The Holy See was established as a subject of international law in the Lateran Treaty of 1929. In the following decades, the connection between the Holy See and the Order of Malta were seen as so close as to call into question the actual sovereginty of the order as a seperate entity. This has prompted constitutional changes on the part of the Order, which were implemented in 1997. Since then, the Order has been widely recognized as a sovereign subject of international law in its own right. 
It maintains diplomatic relations with 107 states. It has United Nations permanent observer status, enters into treaties, and issues its own passports, coins, and postage stamps. Its two headquarters buildings in Rome enjoy extraterritoriality, similar to embassies, and it maintains embassies in other countries. The three principal officers are counted as citizens. 
The Order has 13,500 Knights, Dames and auxiliary members. A few dozen of these are professed religious.  Until the 1990s, the highest classes of membership, including officers, required proof of noble lineage.  More recently, a path was created for Knights and Dames of the lowest class (of whom proof of aristocratic lineage is not required) to be specially elevated to the highest class, making them eligible for office in the order.
The order employs about 42,000 doctors, nurses, auxiliaries and paramedics assisted by 80,000 volunteers in more than 120 countries, assisting children, homeless, handicapped, refugees, elders, terminally ill and lepers around the world without distinction of ethnicity or religion. Through its worldwide relief corps, Malteser International, the order aids victims of natural disasters, epidemics and war. In several countries, includin ...