By Mr. Matteo Luini, International Relations Officer
of Croce Reale - Rinnovamento nella Tradizione

My Lord Sudeley, ladies and gentlemen,

First of all thank you for inviting me to this annual meeting of the Traditional Britain Group; special thanks to my friend Gregory Lauder-Frost.

In my intervention, which I shall endeavour to keep short on account of being the last speaker today, I will try and give a sketch of the Italian cultural association "Croce Reale - Rinnovamento nella Tradizione" (for which I am International relations officer), depicting who we are, what we aim to do, and what our world-view is. Following my speech I will read a statement from our President, barrister Fabrizio Nucera KCSG, and will proceed to sign an Agreement of Friendship between our two Associations.

The name of our cultural association in a nutshell already says quite a bit about us: it sounds as "Royal Cross - Renewal in Tradition" in English. From this you can perceive that the pillars on which we work are two: our Christian-Roman heritage plus the principle of Monarchy, and the preservation (conservation: we are conservatives after all) and fostering in the cultural milieu of said two pillars.

But first of all a couple of words on our field of action: culture. We aren't a political association, we don't aim to do politics and be present in elections, at least in the short and middle period. There are many parties that can do this better, with money and manpower that realities such as ours across the world can only dream of.
But apart from this practical consideration, we have realised that the society in which we live is not a fertile place for concepts such as public duty, honour, altruism, love for one's nation, even beauty and composure and gentlemanlike behaviour. A truly conservative political activity can't really grow any roots if first we don't bring around at the best of our possibilities a renewal and resurgence of these and other fundamental concepts, especially among the younger generations. On this we want to concentrate.

We have to start from our local areas and towns, in order rediscover forgotten  monuments and work of arts, people, local realities and traditions that mark the uniqueness of the place. As way of example, our delegate in Venice has started funding of the renewal of  a theatre in his hometown, and will shortly hold a series of conferences and a requiem Mass for the soul of the erstwhile ruler of those lands, bl. Emperor Karl von Habsburg. To start from the realities nearest to our homes, also, gives to one's actions much more purpose and sense of concreteness.

After describing the framework and scope of Croce Reale, one must tackle the aforementioned two pillars. Let's start with the Monarchy. We believe that this institution is much more apt to embody Traditional and Conservative values than a Republic, and this for a number of reasons. First of all, a King is by definition independent and above politics (even though he may well have his own ideas), he is felt as a force for stability and equanimity, whereas  a President isn't as he is almost invariably a party official.

A King moreover doesn't represent a single party, a single ethnic group, or a single sector of the populace, but instead is representative of his nation as a whole.
Thirdly, a King fully transmits to the nation an aura of tradition, he's a timeless figure: he's not a person as such but is in reality a symbol that carries within himself (or herself in the case of a Queen) the spirit and peculiarities of his predecessors and of his House. He is, we might put it, the father of fathers. A president is just a passing official with scant ties to the immaterial backdrop of the political reality he (temporarily) governs. As conservatives and traditionalists, we think that all this strikes a chord in our hearts. 

And now let's turn to the Roman-Christian heritage. Any history student, or even well-cultured person, knows that the Church built on the basis that was left by the Roman (and Greek too) civilisation: from canon law to administrative divisions, from language (Latin was the official language of the Catholic Church up until the Second Vatican council and is still nowadays even if its use has been much watered down especially in the liturgy) to liturgical vestments.

On this basis the Church built its stunning reality, a reality that has created countless saints and work of arts, has nurtured marvelous works of philosophy and theology, that has taught and fed to poor and rich, that has cared for the souls of countless million across the ages, pointing first and foremost to Heaven and in the meantime not forgetting about the bodies.  

We want to rediscover this strong and deep treasure, all too beaten down or outright ignored nowadays by a cultural elite that is nothing else than atheist and wants to get completely rid of this spiritual and cultural heritage. And sadly this has happened also because of an inside work, as many in the Church of England and the Catholic Church have caved in to the modernist movement and have thus fully embraced the leftist agenda. Our Movement believes on the contrary that all of the above must be brought again to the forefront in our times, and be made again available unadulterated and uncorrupted to European men and women, because a people without a soul can't stand in the world for long, and will sooner or later collapse into ashes.     

One of the main avenues to advance this two great and surely daunting objectives is to unite across Europe with other similarly minded Groups and Associations, such as the TBG. This is very important because it's true that we, by ourselves, are very small realities not capable of putting even a small dent in the Moloch that haunts our current times; but all together, by building a net that ultimately encompasses Europe, the chances of our voices being heard rise indeed. In fact, at the end of this speech, I'll produce an Agreement of Friendship and Cooperation to be signed by both our Associations.

Together, by working at the roots of our contemporaries' soul, there is still hope that words such as God, King and Country won't be just hollow expressions anymore.

Thank you letting me address you and for your kind attention.

Matteo Luini.