Nicholas de Piro, writes:
Andrew Willoughby Ninian Bertie has died in Rome. His age, as it might have been described on a tombstone at St John's, was 78, eight months and 22 days. His achievements are worth recording, but what I wish to say today, as I feel sorry at the loss of a friend, is that his connection with our Malta completely healed any discomfort which might previously have been felt between the Sovereign Order of Malta and the present state of Malta.
When Fra Bertie became Grand Master in 1988 he already had a sentimental connection with Malta. His father and mother had taken up residence here more than 20 years earlier and he had been a regular visitor to their home in Attard, which he eventually inherited.
He already knew a great number of Maltese people and, as a linguist fluent in French, Italian, Spanish and Russian, became interested in learning our language. He could read a Maltese newspaper and made an effort to master whole sentences in Maltese.
When he retired from teaching at Worth, the Benedictine Abbey School in Sussex, he spent a great deal of time in Malta. He often frequented the Greek Church in Archbishop Street and was a close friend of Papas Borgia. As an active member of the Order, when he was elected Grand Master, his mother Lady Jean Bertie was alive and well and he visited her three times a year. Here he found solace from a busy schedule at his official residence in Via Condotti in Rome.
Under his influence, the Sovereign Order grew and grew, and today its significance has been rendered even more than ever a positive influence for good. The number of knights and dames has increased to around 15,000 and the spiralling of volunteers and active helpers have augumented their ranks. The inspiration of Fra Bertie's leadership can be assessed in his own words:
"To help the poor and the sick; that is and always has been our primary aim. The other military orders were there to fight the Saracens and to save Spain or the Holy Land or Prussia from the pagans. But we always had this special commitment to the poor and the sick. Our aims today are exactly the same as they were in 1099, the santification of our members through service to the sick."
As a final affectionate farewell to Grand Master Bertie who loved Malta so much, it would surely be right and fitting to place a modest memorial to him in the crypt of St John's. It would show the bounty of our people internationally, and it would be an embrace to the Order which has left us so much. It would proclaim our reconciliation to the world.