Ratzinger Prize 2015: Mario de França Miranda and Nabil el-Khoury

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(16/11/15) The Brazilian Jesuit Mario de França Miranda and the Lebanese Nabil el-Khoury will be awarded with the Ratzinger Prize 2015, on 21st November in the Royal Hall of the Apostolic Palace. Their names were announced this morning during the Press Conference at the John Paul II hall, in the Press Room of the Holy See.

Mario de França Miranda (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1936). Jesuit priest, full professor of Theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. He was member of the International Theology Commission.

Nabilel-Khoury (Mtaile – Chouf, Lebanon, 1941). Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the Université Libanaise of Beirut and the University of Tubingen. He translated the Joseph Ratzinger’s Opera Omnia in Arabic.

“This choice means that the Vatican Foundation is widening its horizons – as the archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria affirmed. He is secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and member of the Scientific Committee of the Vatican Foundation and he will give the prize. – Since the first time, this award was given to theologians coming from different countries: Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, United States. Due to the ecumenical spirit of the Foundation, this significant award was also given to representatives of non Christian faiths”.

“This year the two award-winners are catholic, but none of them is part of the so-called ‘Western world’. One is from the Latin American area, the other belongs to the Eastern Catholic world. All people will understand the choice. Latin America has given the Church the first non European Pope and the Church has definitely showed its catholic values. The importance of the East for the Church was stressed by Pope John Paul II a lot of times: he used to say that the Church must breathe with two lungs, the East and the West. In the apostolic letter Orientale Lumen he said that we have to know the two great traditions better”.

The president of the Foundation, Msgr. Giuseppe A. Scotti, reminded that “Bydgoszcz, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Medellin, Madrid – seats of the Congresses of the Foundation – are other parts of the same path that involved at least 500 Universities and more than 10.000 teachers and students from Europe, Africa, Latin America. These events have also promoted the exchange of good experiences for a better future. A future in which man and God are able to interact and give life to the mankind, because we have to be ready to meet the living image of God, as Benedict XVI has said. This means that it is possible to meet God and to create life. Pope Francis said some days ago in Florence: “Christian doctrine is able to trouble but also to inspire us. It has got a face that is not rigid, it has got a body that moves and develops, it has got a soft flesh: it is called Jesus Christ.”

While he was analysing the Opera Omnia of Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI, the executive secretary of the Foundation and translator of the Opera Omnia Pierluca Azzaro affirmed that the recently published book Gesù di Nazaret – Scritti di cristologia (second tome of the sixth volume) “concerns the writings Benedict XVI has dedicated to the main topics of Christology, and to the several aspects of the great mystery of Jesus Christ, such as: Revelation, Salvation, Resurrection, Redemption. The next volume of the Opera Omnia to be published will be about the Second Vatican Council.

-          Read the speech of Msgr. Luis Francisco Ladaria, member of the Scientific Committee of the Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation.

-          Read the speech of Msgr. Giuseppe A. Scotti, president of the Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation.

The profiles of the two award-winners

Mario De França Miranda SJ

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Dr. Mario De França Miranda SJ was born in Rio de Janeiro on 24th July 1936. After his secondary education, he joined the Company of Jesus in 1955. He spent his novitiate in Itaici and studied humanities and philosophy at the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Nova Friburgo from 1959 to 1962.

In 1964 he started studying theology at the Theology Faculty of the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and he took a degree in Systematic Theology in 1968, with a graduation thesis on salvation outside the Church according to Karl Rahner. His supervisor was Fr. Piet Fransen SJ. In the following years he dealt with the seminarians at the Brazilian College in Rome and he held a one-semester course on Sacraments and Creation at the Theology Faculty of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC). He was a Ph.D. student of the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome) and he lived in Munster (Germany) for two years; he devoted himself to his graduation thesis, that he defended at the Gregorian University in 1974. It was a critical and systematic study on the Trinitarian Theology of Karl Rahner.

In 1974 he started teaching at the Theology Faculty of the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC), with lessons on the Holy Trinity. From 1975 to 1977 he was dean of the Faculty. In 1978 he started holding courses of Theological Anthropology. Up to 1983 he taught in the same Theology Faculty. In 1979 he went to Belo Horizonte as a full professor of Systematic Theology at the Theology Faculty of the Company of Jesus in Brazil. He also dealt with the topic of Christian Faith in modern culture. In 1990 he became rector of the Company of Jesus (1990-1992).

In 1993 he started teaching again at the Theology Faculty of the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC) and he dealt with new topics, such as “Theology of religions”, “Enculturation of the faith”, “Christian faith and the modern society”. He was dean of the Theology Faculty from 2001 to 2003.

In the last few years he worked on ecclesiological studies for the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB).

He also held courses in several dioceses of Brazil and he contributed to the Conference of Brazilian Bishops, in the Episcopal Commission for the Doctrine and in the annual meetings. He also worked for the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM), during study meetings and courses, and in the drafting of working papers for the Assemblies of Santo Domingo and Aparecida. He attended both Assemblies as an expert member of the Drafting Committee. For two times between 1992 and 2003 he was member of the Vatican International Theology Commission, whose dean was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. As a visiting professor he held a course on “enculturation of the faith” for graduated students of the Pontifical Gregorian University in 2001 and 2002. He attended the Synod of the Penitence in 1983 as an expert of the National Conference of Bishops in Brazil and the Synod of the Americas in 1997 as an expert member of the Latin American Episcopal Council.

He wrote 14 books and 105 scientific articles and he worked on the drafting of other 31 volumes. He is member of the editorial staff of the following reviews: Revista Teología (Argentina) Actualidades Teológicas (Chile), Cuestiones Teológicas (Colombia), Stromata (Argentina), Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira (Brazil), Kairós (Brazil), Revista de Cultura Teológica (Brazil ).

He was the supervisor of 31 graduation theses and 14 Ph.D. theses.

Nabil el-Khoury

Nabil el-Khoury

Dr. Nabil el-Khoury was born in Mtaile- Chouf, Lebanon, on 5th April 1941.

He studied philosophy and theology with Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ, Sélim Abou, père Afif Osseiran and Abdo Khalifé SJ at St. Joseph’s University in Beirut (Lebanon), where he took a degree in Philosophy in 1965. In the same year, he started studying at the Pontifical Urbanian University with Cornelio Fabro and Antonio Piolanti and he obtained a diploma in Theology in 1967.

He then attended the Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen and the University of Regensburg (Germany), where he studied philosophy, theology, political sciences, oriental studies, Christian West and linguistics from 1967 to 1973, and his professors were Joseph Ratzinger, Ernst Bloch, Walter Schulz, Josef Simon and Alexander Böhlig. He was also Ph.D. student of philosophy at the Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen with Professor Walter Schultz and he published “Die Interpretation der Welt bei Ephraem dem Syrer. Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte”.

He had a post-doctoral experience with Paul Ricoeur on the topic “Problèmes d’herméneutique: l’exemple du Liban” at the Sorbonne University of Paris (France) and he worked on the publication of the book “Werke von Schelling” with Hermann Krings, Xavier Tilliette, Walter Schulz, Hans Michael Baumgartner and Wilhelm G. Jacobs at the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Munich (Germany).

Between 1974 and 1977 he qualified as a professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität of Munich and he has been teaching at the Lebanese University of Beirut from 1977.

He is now Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the Lebanese University of Beirut and at the University of Tubingen. He also translated the Joseph Ratzinger's Opera Omnia in Arabic and other writings of Kant, Hegel and Goethe.

He taught at the Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen, the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Germany), the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Germany), the University of Freiburg (Germany) and the University of Salzburg (Austria).

He worked on important editorial projects, such as Beirut Contributions to Theology, Beirut Contributions to Philosophy, Masterpieces of German Literature in Arabic translation.

He wrote a lot of scientific articles and he held conferences in several European countries.

He speaks Arabic, German, French, English, Italian, Latin, Greek, Syriac and Hebrew.