(6/7/16) The Library of the Pontifical Teutonic College in the Vatican City – inside which there is the Library Biblioteca Romana Joseph Ratzinger – Benedetto XVI – will open again on 30^th August. The summer break of the Library – entirely dedicated to the life and the thought of the Pope Emeritus as a scholar and a Pontiff and offering more than one thousand books about Ratzinger and written by him in 40 languages – follows a period of intense work, started on 18^th November, when the Library was inaugurated with a lectio magistralis of cardinalGianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council of Culture, whose title was “From the Bible to the Library – Benedict XVI and the Culture of the Word of God” and the blessing of the archbishop Georg Gänswein, Prefect of the Pontifical Household and personal secretary of the emeritus Pope.

More than one hundred students have already made research and a lot of activities have been organized at the Library in the latest months, thanks to the good relationship among the rector of the Pontifical Teutonic College of Santa Maria in Campo Santo Hans-Peter Fischer, the director of the Roman Institute of the Society of Görres and of the Library Msgr. Stefan Heid and the president of the Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, Msgr. Giuseppe A. Scotti.

The conferences organized at the hall of the Teutonic Cemetery named after Benedict XVI began on 5^th February with the presentation of the volume written by the Vatican reporter Marco Mancini “Benedetto XVI – Un Papa totale” (Tau Publishing House), with the presentation of Msgr. Georg Gänswein. The presentation of the book “Deus caritas est. Porta di misericordia” (LEV 2016, edited by Markus Graulich and Ralph Weimann) was held on 26^th April, with the presentation of cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. “Università senza umanistica? Gli impulsi di Joseph Ratzinger/Benedetto XVI” was the topic of the conference professor Lorenzo Ornaghi –already rector of the Catholic University of Milan Sacro Cuore and minister of Cultural Heritage and Environmental Conservation – held on 24^th May. The meetings regarding the main aspects of the activity and the thought of the Pope Emeritus will restart in autumn.

There are eleven scholars who investigate on Benedict XVI at Ratzinger’s Library and they are leaded by professor Pierluca Azzaro, executive secretary and responsible of the institutional and cultural relationships of the Foundation: there are also seven Ph.D. students, a lecturer and three scholars of the Pontifical Universities.