Professors of the United States, Spain and Italy Are Recipients in the Vatican of the Expanded Reason Awards, Stemming from Ratzinger’s Proposal of An Open Reason

(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 10.09.2023).-The conferring of the 2023 Expanded Reason Awards, in its 6^thedition, will take place at 5:00 pm on Tuesday, October 17, in the Vatican’s Former Synod Hall. The initiative — inspired in Joseph Ratzinger’s idea about the need to have a broad and open vision of reason and of its exercise in the search for truth and the answer to the fundamental questions about humanity and its destiny – is born from the collaboration between the Francisco de Vitoria University (FVU) of Madrid and the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation.

Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, Prefect Emeritus of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will preside over the ceremony. Foreseen is the intervention of Father Federico Lombardi, President of the Ratzinger Foundation, and Professor Daniel Sada, Rector of the Francisco de Vitoria University.

The conferring of the Prizes will then take place, decreed by the International Jury — made up of Father Federico Lombardi, Daniel Sada, Stefano Zamagni, Marta Bertolaso, Rafael Vicuña and Javier M. Prades –, which examined the works proposed by academics of 63 University Institutions, of 15 countries, in four languages.

The laureates are:

In the Research Section

– Anna Rowlands’, Writer (Durham University), “Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times”;

-Simon Maria Kopf, Professor of Fundamental Theology at the ITI Catholic University and Researcher in Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, “Reframing Providence: New Perspectives from Aquinas on the Divine Action Debate.”

In the Docent Section

-Juan Serrano Vicente, Professor and Researcher of the FVU and Academic Director of Europe Grants and of the Leadership School of the FVU, and Carola Díaz de Lope-Díaz Molins (Executive Director  of Santander Grants-FVU Europe and of the Leadership School of the Francisco de Vitoria University for “University Leadership School”;

– Giuseppe Tanzella Nitti and Stefano Oliva, Director and Coordinator, respectively, of the DISF Educational platform, active in the “Science and Faith” Inter-Disciplinary Documentation Center, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome.

-Elizabeth Newman, Professor of Theology at the Union Presbyterian Seminary, Baptist House of Studies, and Duke Divinity School, received an honourable mention for her work “Divine Abundance.”