For immediate release:

November 4, 2021

NEW YORK – MI Americas President delivers remarks at Sovereign Order of Malta Mission to the United Nations event.

Tuesday evening, at the Sovereign Military Order of Malta’s Mission to the United Nations, H.E. Dr. Ambassador Paul Hereseford-Hill, CBE, KM hosted one of his first in-person gatherings as Ambassador with many distinguished guests from the UN mission core, the Order of Malta’s Sovereign Council, as well as members of Malteser International Americas’ (MI Americas) board and staff.

Due to a family emergency, Malteser International Secretary-General Clemens Graf von Mirbach-Harff could not be in attendance, but in his stead, MI Americas President John McInerney III, KM delivered remarks on his behalf:

“Good evening,

I arrived here yesterday afternoon expecting to be on the other side of the podium with you listening to our Secretary General’s remarks.

Unfortunately he had to return to Germany with a family emergency and I have been asked to deliver his remarks for him. So, here is what he would have said had he been here with us this evening.

Your Excellencies

Ambassador Beresford-Hill,

Distinguished guests:

With great joy and aspirations I looked forward to this visit to the western hemisphere. My sincere apologies that urgent family matters have prevented me from attending in person, nevertheless I am pleased and honored to send you these greetings virtually.

As Secretary General of Malteser International, I thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for your invitation to this great city which is famous as the beacon of a new world of freedom, equality, and opportunity; and which later became more renowned as the seat of the United Nations and the promise of a new world of peaceful international cooperation.  

This is particularly the case since, with our tradition, our history, and our attachment to the ideals of nobility, the Order of Malta embodies much of what Emma Lazarus references in her poem, The New Colossus, which is now at the base of the Statue of Liberty, regarding the “old world”.

For more than nine hundred years our unrelenting mission has been to serve what she calls the “tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” And it is in that service, to those whom we call our Lords the Sick and the Poor, in which the whole machinery and sovereignty of the Order is engaged.

This is the embassy of the 235 million people around the world who are currently in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, and whose voices struggle to be heard amidst the tumult of international discord and amidst the braying winds of history. 

Our thirteen thousand members, eighty thousand volunteers, and forty thousand employees serve people in need in their local communities in almost every country of the globe, including the United States. Malteser International, the international humanitarian arm of the Order, currently provides humanitarian and development assistance to about three million people each year. Our teams are working as we speak to provide urgent medical and humanitarian relief to the millions of people suffering from the effects of conflict and displacement in Syria and Venezuela, from the consequences of natural disasters in Haiti as well as situations of distress in thirty-one (31) other countries around the world.

Many of these countries are represented here this evening. I would like take this opportunity to renew the spirit of partnership and friendship that we share in keeping with the approach outlined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These relationships make our work fruitful and never fail to be a source of great comradeship and inspiration at every level. 

Although our task is perennial, it changes to meet the demands of each new age. The new world of uncertainty and of terror, which was inaugurated here on September 11th 2001 has led us via a sickening spiral to the greatest situation of humanitarian distress that has been seen since 1945. At the same time, climate change, technological change, and political change present us with challenges on a scale that has not been seen for generations. We are confident these challenges will be met and mastered as so many have been before.

The Order has committed itself to pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals of no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being; clean water and sanitation; and climate action by 2030. We have mainstreamed all of our project activities in 31 countries in COVID 19 preparedness and response

Malteser International is the primary tool in the hands of the Order for meeting this commitment. Our 125 projects in fields as diverse as health system strengthening in the DRC, reconstructing destroyed homes in Iraq, promoting inclusive access to water and sanitation in the Philippines, sustainable agriculture in Lebanon, providing health care for refugees, returnees and host communities in Colombia and Venezuela, or working to offset our own carbon footprint are manifesting these commitments day by day.  

But as the history of this city, and of the United Nations to which it is home, shows, it is only through cooperation in a spirit of respect for human dignity that we can make the new world that opens before us every day into a place worthy of aspiration. The example of countries like the United States and Germany, which are committed to providing substantial material support to international aid and development, and which as MI’s primary donors make our work possible, never fail to be an inspiration in this regard. Please allow me to extend to them our most sincere thanks for their trust and support.  I would like to renew before all of you MI’s commitment to the principles that Providence has ordained should bring us together this evening.

If we guard our history, it is because a history of redemption and victory against all the odds is what gives us a founded hope for the future. If we keep our tradition, it is because we want to live a tradition of faith that teaches us that every person is created in the image of God. And if we uphold an ideal of nobility, then it is a nobility of charity and of service to the poorest and most vulnerable of God’s children that sets us free from caring only for ourselves.

Thank you for accompanying us on our journey thus far. I hope and pray that we can continue to go forward and make a new world together.”