Vatican Names First Winners of 'Ratzinger Prize' in Theology

Pope Benedict XVI will present the first Ratzinger Prize to three European theologians later this month, organizers said at the Vatican on Tuesday.

The award promotes dialogue between theology and culture at a time of "flagrant divorce" between the two, said Giuseppe della Torre, rector of Rome's Catholic LUMSA university.

Benedict will bestow the prize June 30 on two internationally known lay professors, one Italian and the other Spanish, and a German abbot who is less well known, Della Torre told a news conference.

Manilo Simonetti, 85, is an authority on ancient Christianity and 77-year-old Olegario Gonzalez de Cardedal, formerly of the Pontifical University of Salamanca, writes on the relationship between theology and anthropology.

Maximilian Heim, 50, is abbot of the monastery of Heiligenkreuz in Austria and a professor of fundamental and dogmatic theology.

Della Torre said the award, set up by the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, was aimed at encouraging Christian thinkers to pose "fundamental questions to the ecclesiastical community and the entire civil community" in a society "which appears to have lost the dimension of hope."