Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, awarded the Ratzinger Prize to University of Notre Dame theologian Cyril O’Regan and Japanese sculptor Etsurō Sotoo in a ceremony at the Vatican on Friday afternoon.
The Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation chooses the annual recipients of the award, which is named in honor of the late Pope Benedict XVI.
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Before the ceremony on November 22, the awardees participated in a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Georg Gänswein in the Vatican crypts near the tomb of Benedict XVI.
They also met with Pope Francis in his study in the Apostolic Palace.
O’Regan is a systematic theologian specializing in the thought of 19th and 20th century Catholics, such as St. John Henry Newman, Henri de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
Born in Ireland in 1952, O’Regan is the first Irishman to receive this coveted award, which has been awarded since 2011 to distinguished scholars working primarily in theology and philosophy.
O’Regan, who earned doctorates in theology and philosophy at Yale University, has taught at Notre Dame since 1999.
In his speech at the awards ceremony on Friday, O’Regan expressed feeling inadequate for having received such an honor, calling the award “more of a gift than a desert.”
The other winner of the 2024 Ratzinger Prize, Sotoo, is a Japanese sculptor whose work can be found in places such as the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain.
Sotoo moved from Japan to Europe in 1978. After settling in Germany, he moved to Spain, settling in Barcelona, where he became the principal sculptor of Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia, the basilica that has been under construction since 1882 and which Sotoo is responsible for approximately 500 sculptures.
He also sculpted the ambo, from which the Gospel is read, in the famous Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy.
Translated and adapted by ACI Prensa. Originally published in CNA.
Hannah Brockhaus
Hannah Brockhaus is Rome correspondent for Catholic News Agency. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.