I am happy to say that this year two knights have taken their perpetual vows and six have taken temporary vows.
I cannot emphasise enough how important this is to the future of the Order, as it is the Professed members who are its core.

Unfortunately, we have seen the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we have volunteers working to help the poor and the sick, and also to help in the education of girls, who have been deprived of the opportunity of going to school for almost two decades…

World leaders met for three days in Geneva this month for the World Summit on the Information Society, set up by the United Nations, to discuss how to bridge the ‘digital divide’ between rich and poor. More than 60 heads of state, officials from 175 countries and another 10,000 representatives from government administrations, media, business and technology met to discuss ways to bring poorer nations into the information age and speed up their economic development by improving access to mobile phone technology and the internet.

Below is the text of the speech given by HE Jean-Pierre Mazery, Chief Delegate of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the Summit

The Sovereign Council of the Order of Malta has posthumously conferred on Brigadier Giuseppe Coletta the Gold Medal of Merit with Swords. The Brigadier Carabiniere was among those killed during the 12 November attack in Assyria.
The Sovereign Council, at the proposal of the Order of Malta’s Grand Prioriate of Lombardy and Venice, conferred the same honour on the flag of the 13th Regiment of the Carabinieri of Gorizia ‘in consideration for the contribution of all the Regiment’s soldiers who demonstrated a great spirit of selflessness, including when leading to their own self-sacrifice’.

Since the beginning of September, the Order of Malta German Emergency Corps (Malteser) has provided primary heathcare to 165,000 Angolans, including refugees, internally displaced persons and returnees, in Kuando Kubango in the southeast of Angola.

Health facilities have been supplied with medicaments and medical equipment. Health workers have been trained and immunisation programmes are being established. Pregnant women and children under the age of five are receiving supplementary feeding.

On behalf of the Afghan Interim Government, the Order of Malta German Emergency Corps (Malteser) has expanded its activities in the Badghis province in Western Afghanistan, where the team runs the only hospital and up to ten health centres in four districts of the province.

Pilgrims, medics and paramedics, members and volunteers from the Order’s Italian Delegations took part in the traditional pilgrimage to the shrine of Loreto, in the province of Ancona, central Italy, from 24 to 26 October.

The days of celebration began on Via Lucis and ended inside the Sanctuary. The pilgrims participated in the daytime Mass on Saturday inside the Basilica on Via Crucis, and in the Eucharistic Benediction procession to the Holy House of the Virgin Mary.

Sixty Child Development Centres are being established in the 2001 earthquake struck regions of Bachau and Rapar, where caste discrimination is a particularly big problem. The Order of Malta German Emergency Coorps (Malteser) supports a three-year project which aims at improving the situation of children who belong to the former so-called ‘untouchable’ caste, the Tribals and Dalit. The marginalized castes are kept away from every aspect of social life because they are considered ‘inferior’.

On October 16th John Paul II celebrated the 25th anniversary of his papacy with solemnity along with more than 50,000 people in a mass performed in St. Peter’s Square. The Grand Master, Fra’ Andrew Bertie was present at the event, accompanied by a number of Sovereign Council members and other Ladies and Knights of the Order of Malta.

Among the personalities present were the President of the Italian Republic, the President of Poland, the Vice President of Guatemala and Sierra Leone, the President of the Slovakian Parliament, Hungarian and Uruguayan Presidential consorts, along with political personalities from Ireland, Slovenia, Germany, Brazil, the United States, Kazakhstan, Paraguay, Peru and Canada.

The Grand Master and members of the Sovereign Council joined the Order’s Western Association in participating in ceremonies to celebrate the Association’s fiftieth anniversary. Events and religious functions commemorated a half-century of charitable activities dedicated to helping the poor and sick.

During his visit, Saint John’s University of Minnesota bestowed an honorary law degree on the Grand Master, with the ceremony performed by the University’s President, the Reverend Dietrich Reinhart.

Malteser Hilfsdienst, the Emergency Corps of the German Association of the Order of Malta, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, in September in Germany and in October in Rome. The Malteser Hilfsdienst, known as the MHD, works with the sick across the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as with humanitarian projects in many countries across the globe.

Of the many events organised as part of the celebration, perhaps the most important to the participants is a pilgrimage to Rome, scheduled for 21-25 October, when they will have a special audience in the Vatican with Pope John Paul II. Over a thousand members of the MHD will be there, including 250 disabled. Also programmed is a meeting with Fra’ Andrew Bertie, the Grand Master, as well as ceremonies of celebration in the Basilicas of Santa Sabina and Santa Maria in Trastevere and in San Giovanni in Laterano.