A post-script to the awards ceremony of the 2012 Ratzinger Prizes - about the introductory remarks by the president of the Foundation and Cardinal Ruini's presentation of the prize-winners. I just wish the OR had simply published the full texts of their remarks, which were brief enough, instead of bothering to excerpt and paraphrase them. I think their readers would have been much better served. After all, they are supposed to be the newspaper of Vatican record...
The Ratzinger Prizes are meant
to show that 'the study of God
brings light and joy to man'
Translated from the 10/21/12 issue of
"The quest for God and man's capacity to give voice to his presence are a true and decisive investment for the future of man: of the whole man who is 'made of something a little less than angels, crowned with glory and honor".
With these words, Mons. Antonio Scotti, president of the Administrative Council of the Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI opened the awarding ceremony Saturday morning of the 2012 Ratzinger Prizes in Theology.
In his introductory remarks, Mons. Scotti underscored the importance of the annual Ratzinger Prize(s) which are being given out for the second year."It is the way by which the Foundation wishes to say that study and scientific research, with God as the object, are able to bring light and joy to the life of man. This, we all know well, is the heart of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI's teaching".
Mons. Scotti recalled the words used by Benedict XVI last Easter Vigil when the Pope affirmed that "the truly menacing darkness for man is the fact that he, in fact, is able to see and investigate tangible and material things but does not see where the world is going and from whence it came. Where does our life lead to? What is good and what is evil?... Faith which shows us the light of God (...) is an irruption of God's light into our world, an opening to the true light for our eyes".
Mons. Scotti said, "We are all aware of the great and immense need for a new 'irruption of light' in our time". And in this context, he underscored not just the importance of the Ratzinger Prise which reminds everyone that is is possible to seek and find that light, but also the precious gift of the Year of Faith which has just begun, to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. These are occasions, he said, to enable us "once again to be capable of effectively re-proposing the Christian mystery to contemporary man".
In the name of all those present - among whom were the Synodal Fathers who took a break from their work to attend the ceremony - Mons. Scotti thanked Benedict XVI: "Thank you, most blessed Father, because through your service, you call us back to the true and profound meaning of existence. With your words and writings, you have led each of us to ask ourselves, 'Is it true what I am being told?', and if it is, 'Does it really concern me?', and if it concerns me, 'How exactly?"
These are questions posed in a friendly way to the heart and mind of man, which we will all have an occasion once again to read and hear shortly, when we have in our hands your book on the childhood of Jesus, which completes your trilogy on JESUS OF NAZARETH. The act of awarding today the Ratzinger Prize to these two scholars, who have rendered service to the enlightened reason of faith in many different universities, is a noble and eloquent way by which the Church, through this authoritative gesture by Peter, invites everyone towards a fresh encounter with the Lord who alone can fill our existence with profound significance and peace".
Cardinal Ruini's presentation
of the 2012 Ratzinger Prize winners
Translated from the 10/21/12 issue of
"The Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI." said Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who heads the Foundation's scientific committee, on presenting the 2012 winners of the Ratzinger Prize for Theology, "sees in Femi Brague and Brian Daley two scholars who, starting from an extraordinary knowledge of the origins and the history of the Christian faith, have looked ahead in order to construct on the basis of this faith the present and the future of the human family".
Fr. Brian Daley, Jesuit theologian and patrologist from the United States, completed his theological studies at the Hochschule Skt. Georgen of Frankfurt, where he was also an assistant to the great historian of Christology, Alois Grillmeier. He obtained his doctorate from Oxford University with a critical study of the works of Leontius of Byzantium. He taught theology at the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1978 to 1996, and since then to the present, at the University of Notre Dame.
Moreover, he has worked much in the ecumenical field, especially for relationships between Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and is currently the Executive Secretary for the Catholics on the Catholic-Orthodox Organization for North America.
He is the author of the book
The hope of the Early Church: a Handbook of Patristic Eschatology and has translated to English the ancient Greek homilies on the Dormition of Mary and Greek and Byzantien patristic homilies on the Transfiguration, as well as Hans Urs von Balthasar's
Cosmic Liturgy: The universe according to Maximus the Confessor.
«Rémi Brague, with whom I have the honor to have a personal relationship as well," Ruini continued, "is a true philosopher who is also a great historian of cultural thought, who combined with his speculative powers and historical vision a profound and explicit Catholic and Christian faith, to which he bears witness without complexes".
Brague studied philosophy and classical languages at the Ecole Normale Superieure of Paris. and later, Hebrew and Arabic. He taught for 20 years, from 1990-2010, at the Sorbonne, and currently he holds the Romano Guardini Chair of Science and History of Religions and of the Christian World View at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich.
He is a mamber of the Institut de France's Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and has earned prestigious international prizes, such as the Grand Prix for Philosophy of the Academie Francaise.
"Among his many books - which range from Greek philosophy to medieval Christian, Jewish and Muslim philosophy, and to works of theoretical synthesis and analysis, I want to point out
Europe, la voie romaine (Europe, the Roman way) and
La Sagesse du rnonde. Histoire de l'expérience humaine de l'univers (The wisdom of the world: The history of the human experience of the universe), which I particularly like;
Du Dieu des chrétiens (About the God of Christians); and finally, his most recent book,
Les Ancres dans le ciel: L'infrastructure métaphysique» (Anchors in heaven: The metaphysical infrastructure).