OPR- Friday, 25th June 2004

Your Most Eminent Highness,

I would first of all like to thank you for the honour you have just bestowed on me.

It has become customary for the newly elected President of Malta to pay a visit to His Holiness The Pope and to pay a State Visit to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta on his first official visit abroad.  This custom underscores the special relationship that exists between Malta and the Holy See and Malta and the Order.  I feel privileged to have the opportunity of continuing this tradition in what is surely a historic year for Malta.

As of first May this year, Malta gained its rightful place as a member of the European Union.  Although somewhat dislocated from mainland Europe, Malta has for centuries considered itself a European country.  We owe much of this sentiment to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.  During the Order’s stay in Malta, we experienced the best of what Europe had to offer in terms of culture, education, values and architecture.  The seeds planted on Maltese soil during those years have firmly taken root and are still very evident today.  Malta today is rightfully proud of having one of the oldest universities in Europe, of having the oldest surviving theatre built in the times of Grandmaster Manoel De Vilhena.  We are proud of the magnificent fortifications and palaces that adorn Valletta, the three cities and beyond.  But more than that, we are proud of our forefathers’ brave stand to protect the values and religion that underpin European culture.  Those values still hold relatively strong today in Malta even though we are not immune to the erosion brought about by the prevalent egocentric mentality that is gripping the world today.

The humanitarian work carried out by the eleven thousand members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, assisted by nothing less than eighty thousand trained volunteers, stands out as a beacon of light for all those who do not subscribe to this mentality.  By providing assistance in war-torn regions and in areas hit by natural disasters, the Order is not only healing the wounds of the injured but is healing the wounds of society as a whole.  The Order is re-instilling faith in humankind in areas where this faith was replaced by hatred or despair.  The Order’s motto "Tuitio Fidei et Obsequium Pauperum" therefore remains as valid today as it was centuries ago.

Your Most Eminent Highness,

The bilateral relations between the Order and Malta should be based on this cornerstone.  We have common values.  Let us find ways of assisting each other in promoting these values.  Just as we should find ways of better preserving our common architectural heritage.  In recent years, with the granting of exclusive use of Fort Saint Angelo to the Knights, the presence of the Order in Malta became more evident.  I have personally attended activities organised by the Accademia Internazionale Melitense in Fort Saint Angelo.  I found these activities enlightening in their content and most useful in promoting the good relation between Malta and the Order.  We should aspire launching more such initiatives.

I am sure that our meeting today will help us identify such initiatives thereby increasing our co-operation and deepening our excellent relations.