This is not the first time we meet; neither is it the first opportunity I have had of coming to this Academy and to such a pleasant ambiente. I find it very welcoming because it is at the same time American and Franciscan, two things which, at first, may seem to contradict each other. When talking of Franciscanism we immediately think, of course, of the simple life, the contact with nature. We think of Italy, with its fields and cities, its mountains where the Lord appeared, covered with wings, to strike the Seraphic Father with the wounds which made possible humanity’s redemption—Italy, with its crystalline rivers which, together with the winds in the oak trees, are the only orchestra that accompanies the silence of the hermitages.