Last week, I presided over a small ceremony at my Residence to present, on behalf of The Queen, the British Empire Medal to my colleague at the embassy, Helen Beggs Frigieri. The medal was awarded for services to relations between the United Kingdom and the Holy See. I was very pleased that Holy See officials also attended alongside other guests and family members of the recipient, recognising the importance of the occasion.
Helen’s award was for her dedication, professionalism and sheer hard work in the organisation of no less than six Royal visits to the Holy See in the last five years. As I noted in my speech at the ceremony, from a policy perspective, these were crucial visits that helped to provide the framework for the steady improvement and thickening of the bilateral relationship in recent years. The Royal relationship with the Holy See is important to our hosts. In particular, the visit of The Queen to the Vatican in April 2014 – only the fourth of her reign – demonstrated the significance of relations between the global British and Holy See networks at the start of a new Pontificate.
The success of such visits does not happen by magic. They require months of planning, focus on detail, and readiness to respond to last minute emergencies. Helen’s qualities shone through during the preparation of each of the visits. She is in many ways just the sort of “unsung hero(ine)” for whom the honours system is best designed. I am delighted that she has been publicly honoured in this way.