‘If they re-elect me, I’d have to consider it’

In many ways, says Fra’ Matthew Festing, it’s a relief not to be His Most Eminent Highness the Prince and Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. Overseeing the order’s aid work around the world was rewarding, he says, but “you’re dealing with utterly silly minutiae all the time, rivalries and difficulties and unpleasantnesses.”

So it wasn’t entirely unwelcome when on January 24, after a period of turbulence in the order, Pope Francis asked Festing to resign. “He said, ‘I want to dig out the Order of Malta, and it would be easier for me to do so without you in position.’ So I said, ‘OK, fine.’”