Indian Marian institute honoured by Pope

(December 17, 2010) A Marian institute in southern India’s Karnataka state has been honoured by Pope Benedict XVI with a Vatican prize for its studies on Mary. The Bangalore-based “Marian Academy of India” and a Portuguese professor were announced joint winners of the Pontifical Ecclesiatical Academies Prize during the 15th meeting of the pontifical ecclesiastical academies in Rome on Thursday. At the meeting, Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone read out a message by the Pope in which the joint winners were announced. The Pope wrote, “In order to encourage those who want to offer their contribution to the promotion and realization of a new Christian humanism, I welcome the proposal of Coordinating Council of the Pontifical Academies and happily award the Pontifical Ecclesiatical Academies Prize jointly to the Marian Academy of India, a young and active mariological-marian society based in Bangalore, India, represented by its president Fr. Kulandaisamy Rayar, and Prof. Luìs Alberto Esteves dos Santos Casimiro” for his doctoral thesis on the Lord’s Annunciation in 16th century Portuguese paintings. Sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, the meeting was prepared by the Pontifical Academy of the Immaculate Conception and the Pontifical International Marian Academy to recall the 60th anniversary of the dogma of the Assumption which was proclaimed on Nov. 1, 1950.