(Rivista Internazionale - December 1998: An epochal turning point - 2/5)

Honduras. the Order’s humanitarian action, promptly accomplished in Honduras and in Nicaragua in favour of the populations hit by hurricane Mitch. Participating to the action were also the members of the International Task Force of the Emergency Corps of the Order (ECOM), co-ordinated in Brussels with an intervention plan in collaboration with numerous national entities of the Order.

It means that relations with the Holy See have not only intensified in recent years, but are underpinned by a great mutual trust as proven by this splendid result, finally cancelling out the experiences of 1951.
From a political point of view I want to explain what the new Constitutional Charter and Code means for the Order, for its present managers, for you, for all the Knights. The new Constitutional Charter has been a turning point for the Order that can unquestionably be defined as epochal. This Charter brings down all the barriers to the Order’s sovereignty set up by the cardinals’ judgement which, at the time of the discord with the Holy See, had made the Order strictly subordinate to the Vatican. The appointment of the Grand Master had to be confirmed by the Pope, the lay members of the government had to be given dispensations; the Congregation had extensive authority over the Order, including its political and jurisdictional activities. The new Constitutional Charter has done away with all this: the cardinals’ judgement on relations between the Order and the Holy See has been abolished whereas, against this, it has been openly affirmed that the Order’s diplomatic mission to the same Holy See is disciplined by international law; the election of the Grand Master is simply «communicated»; the dispensations for the lay members are given by the Grand Master and the Holy See has no say in the Order’s political and jurisdictional life (the appeal to the Court of Cassation of the Vatican State has also been suppressed) with only the religious members and the spiritual life still being subordinate.
This is why it is an epochal turning point. The countries which still do not recognise us will certainly not have any difficulty in doing so now; above all they will not be able to question our position by saying we are subordinate to the Holy See, as we have heard so many times in the past. This is the true significance of the Constitutional Charter, drawn up by the relevant committees. Naturally, the outside world has been more interested in learning whether the Magistral Knights could or could not enter «in Obedience», or if the Dames could be of Obedience or not and their role. These, however, are minor aspects of the significance of the Charter. The fundamental fact is that the Charter has redesigned our relationship with the Holy See.
How did all this happen? It has certainly been a long road in which negotiations have been intense and the contacts continuous. This road has passed through the seminars, the Latin-American meetings, the gatherings which have marked the political stages in the evolving need for reform and thus also the meetings for approving the same reform.
Along this road the Order has obtained further recognition on an international front, not least its admission, in 1994, to the United Nations as Permanent Observer. This was highly significant because, politically speaking, Embassy contacts are slow as regards both bilateral and multilateral relations. The position we have obtained in the United Nations now enables us to have a direct and rapid contact with 190 countries. If there is a problem, if there is a need, we can obtain a response from States in 24 hours through our mission to the United Nations, because ambassadors and diplomatic representatives to the United Nations obtain preferential treatment on the diplomatic level. It is there that the international discourse is carried on, it is there that replies have to be given immediately. And this has facilitated that recognition from other countries, still under way and now numbering eighty-one, as said before, Naturally, we still have to grow. We have to arrive at half plus one of the members of the United Nations: this is my political pledge as Chancellor. Because only in this way can we raise the issue, in the United Nations, of entering the class of "Observer States" like the Holy See and Switzerland, without necessarily having a sovereign territory. The Order’s sovereignty cannot be based on a strip of land or a few square kilometres of territory which can always be found in the world.

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