Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday presided over a ceremony in which the 2012 Ratzinger
Prize for Theology was awarded to a pair of winners: the renowned US expert in patristics,
Jesuit Fr. Brian Edward Daley of Notre Dame University; and the lay French philosopher
and historian of cultural thought Rémi Brague. Listen to our report:
In his remarks
to the winners and the gathered guests, the Holy Father spoke of the profound and
necessary connection between intellectual rigour and lived experience of the reality
of God in all truly Catholic theological endeavour. “Father Daley and Professor Brague,”
said Pope Benedict, “are exemplary for the transmission of knowledge that unites science
and wisdom, scientific rigor and passion for man, so that man might discover the [true]
‘art of living’.” The Holy Father went on to say, “It is of precisely such people
who, through an enlightened and lived faith render God credible and close to the man
of today, what we have need.”
The Ratzinger Prize for Theology is sponsored
by the Joseph Ratzinger Vatican Foundation, which was founded in 2010, with the approval
of the Holy Father. Its aim is to “promote the publication, distribution and study
of the writings of former university professor Joseph Ratzinger.” The Foundation also
provides grants to doctorate students of theology and organizes high-level academic
conferences. The activities of the foundation are financed through the publication
and sale of Pope Benedict's works.