Rome. Magistral Palace. The President of the Italian Republic, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro dwelt on the Order's international presence and humanitarian activity during the Prince and Grand Master, H.M.E.H. Fra' Andrew Bertie's audience with him last December.

With the considerable development of its diplomatic network, the Order already had an instrument which would have enabled it to intervene, on the request of those concerned, as mediator or arbitrator. Its admission, as Observer, in the General Assembly has a twofold effect. It will render its aforesaid intervention more authoritative and make our voice heard in all those actions, stemming from the United Nations, or supported by it, which correspond to our ideals. The President of the Italian Republic, in his reply to our Grand Master's address, showed how well he appreciated our position when he said that the major international bodies "have a great need of presences which do not have force behind them in the sense that this word has in the political, legal and, indeed, common language, but the force of principles, the force of appeal to human values".

The Grand Chancellor, Amb. Barone Felice Catalano di Melilli, since 1980 Head of the Order's Executive.

The last five years, and also the first months of the next five years have seen a considerable development in the Order's spirituality, with a growing participation in retreats and pilgrimages and a series of conferences on the Order's nature and choice in the many cases in which health, hunger, and overpopulation issues risk conflicting with some of our indisputable principles. President Scalfaro also showed he had grasped this aspect when, speaking of our possibilities, he stated that "its international presence and humanitarian work is blended with this splendid spiritual flower, so bright, deep and open with a Christian testimony presented without excluding any other presence, with great respect for all, but presented with great firmness, with great awareness, with great dignity and, may I say, also traditionally, with great consistency".

The Sant'Angelo Fort agreement, the reform of the Constitutional Charter and Code and the admission of the Order as UN Observer, are milestones in the Order's history. Are they the result of the last three years' intense work to implement the Strategies Programme?

Certainly the last three years have marked a notable development in the issues mentioned and they have found a suitable culture medium in the initiatives of the Strategies Programme.

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