Whoever wishes can stand up and invoke the Holy Spirit – you can find the prayer on the sheet that has been given to you. Whoever wishes, in a very spontaneous way, can do the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Come Holy Spirit,
Come down in our hearts:
Teach us what we have to do,
Show us the path that we are to follow,
Do yourself what you request of us.
May you be the only one, who suggests and guides our decisions,
Because only you, with God Father and His Son,
Have a holy and glorious name:
Do not let us harm justice,
You who love order and peace;
May ignorance not lead us astray,
May human favour not make us partial;
May positions and people not influence us;
Keep us close to you with the gift of your grace,
So that we may be all one with you,
And never grow apart from the truth.
First of all we are here to thank the Forensic Trust that is freely offering us hospitality, and this is a very beautiful thing. We thank our President of Order of Lawyers in Rome, for his presence; everyone here knows Mr. Cassiani, a lawyer who many of us admire for his humanity.
He is here not only for his role, but also because he cherishes us in a particular way; he has got a watchful eye on us and I am sure he will give us all his possible help through his work at our beloved Order’s Council so that our mission can slowly become part not only of the Order’s Council, but of our milieu.
Today, we have Father Ildebrando Scicolone as speaker. Some of us, who have the habit of listening to Radio Maria, probably have already heard of him, his name, his fame; he is a Professor of Holy Liturgy at the Pontificia Università S. Anselmo and he is here to give us his spiritual contribution.
Another speaker who has been invited in a very exceptional and beautiful way is the US Ambassador Tony Hall. At the moment, having still some difficulties with his Italian, needs the interpreter and has preferred to be with the translator for this first session of the meeting but he will join us later.
The Ambassador, prior to entering the diplomatic corps, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives which he served for 24 years, one of the longest serving representatives in American history. He was the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Hunger and the Democratic Caucus Task Force on Hunger. He founded and was one of the two members on the steering committee of the Congressional Friends of Human Rights Monitor. He has been the U.S. Ambassador for 22 months at the U.N. Agencies located in Rome. He is a special person and you yourself will notice this from his testimony; in fact he has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace four times; his activity has always been focused on world peace. But we are going to listen to him later on. So, now I would like to pass the word to our dearest President.