Sources inside the order indicated that the row was a pretext, that Cardinal Burke wanted the knights to promote his traditionalist vision of Catholicism and that when von Boeselager was sacked he had told friends that he had been labelled as a "a liberal Catholic". Von Boeselager, in an interview said, "I think it [the condoms] was a pretext." The Grand Chancellor, meanwhile, told The Tablet during an interview at the Knights' headquarters in the Via dei Condotti, Rome, "The root cause was an increasing difference of opinions between the former Grand Master and the government of the order. It was less a difference in fundamental visions about the order but more on quite concrete matters of governance".
