SW News: Pope Francis will award the Ratzinger Prize 2022 to Professor Fr Michel Fédou SJ, and Professor Joseph Halevi Horowitz Weiler during a ceremony in the Apostolic Palace’s Clementine Hall, on December 1.

The Ratzinger Prize was launched in 2011 to honor scholars whose work demonstrates a meaningful contribution to theology in the spirit of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the ace theologian from Germany’s Bavaria who later became the successor of Pope St John Paul II. In recent years, the prize has also been given to academics, composers, artists, and writers who have contributed to the Christian faith.

Fédou, a Jesuit priest, has been teaching Dogmatic Theology and Patristics at the Centre Sèvres of Paris since 1987. He is also a proponent of ecumenical dialogue. The 69-year-old who hails from Lyon, France, has penned several works spanning patristics and Christology. He is also a member of several theological organizations and commissions that focus on dialogue with Lutherans and Orthodox Christians.

Weiler, on the other hand, is a Jewish Professor of Law in universities and international institutes. His expertise has seen him engaged in numerous institutions in the United States and elsewhere. The 71-year-old native of Johannesburg, South Africa, was the president of the European University Institute of Florence and is the author of many works about constitutional and international law as well as human rights. In his book “A Christian Europe: An Exploratory Essay,” he coined the term Christophobia, a concept papal biographer George Weigel has written about extensively.

Since its beginning, as many as 26 scholars have been awarded the Ratzinger Prize. Candidates for the prize are chosen by the scientific committee of the Ratzinger Foundation and presented to the pope, who approves the winners. The scientific committee members are appointed by the pontiff.

The committee members this year are Cardinals Angelo Amato, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints; Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture; Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg, Bavaria. The president of Pope Benedict XVI Institute Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella stood in for Cardinal Amato.