Rome, Rhodes Palace. Meeting of the Communications Delegates of the National and International Organisations of the Order, chaired by H.M.E.H. the Prince and Grand Master, Fra' Andrew Bertie, held in 1992. The Grand Chancellor (on the right of H.M.E.H.), Ambassador Baron Felice Catalano di Melilli, the Receiver of the Common Treasure (left), Ambassador Don Carlo Marullo di Condojanni, and the Communications Secretary, Gian Luigi Rondi Nasalli.

What seemed simply utopian in 1988 has now become an actual process of institutional reform.
All the Order's members have contributed to this work, not only in the meetings and seminars, but also in the commissions and subcommissions, quietly producing concrete projects, some already completed before schedule. It should not be forgotten that it was the Latin-American meetings and seminars which prepared the ground for what certainly represents the most significant achievement for the third millennium: the Order's admission as Permanent Observer to the United Nations Assembly.
This accomplishment was not only the point of arrival of the Order's humanitarian action world-wide, but above all a political recognition, a necessary point of departure for future actions. It is precisely in contacts with the UN Headquarters that procedures can be speeded up, acting as a sounding board for those humanitarian works which the Order has been carrying out for nine centuries and which, today more than ever, commit it to safeguarding the individual's rights.
Through the UN, the action of the Order's bodies engaged in humanitarian aid will become even more incisive and rapid. In particular ECOM, the International Emergency Corps, is starting to become a very efficient operational tool, which can also be put at the disposal of the United Nations for those sectors where it has specific skills.
The author had the honour not only of organising the first seminar, desired by the heads of the Orders national and international bodies, but also that of participating in the Chapter Generals of 1989 and 1994, of signing the agreement granting the Sant'Angelo Fort, and of opening in Miami, Florida the Co-ordination Centre for Aid to America, of chairing the first commission for the reform of the Constitutional Charter and Code, concluding the work on the strategies in the second seminar in Malta, with the papers presented to the Chapter General of 1994. All this in line with the Latin-American meetings, which have also been important for creating a favourable climate for international diplomacy in the American continent, helping to achieve the Order's recognition in the United Nations. With humility therefore, but with the awareness inherent in the institutional tasks I have carried out to date, I consider it necessary on the eve of the Chapter General of 1997 to draw the attention of all my confreres to the fact that delicate political and institutional problems have to be addressed. The Order's ability to keep pace with the great transformations heralded for the new millennium will largely depend on the solution of these problems. The Order must therefore also adjust its governmental structures to this new scenario.

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