Just before dawn: A rainy November morning just before dawn in Rome, today, November 22, Feast of St. Cecilia, and 61 years since the assassination of U.S. President John Kennedy in 1963
The Vatican’s Sala Regia, next to the Sistine Chapel (which is through the door just visible on the right), where tonight the two winners of the “Ratzinger Prize” were announced this evening
The two recipients of this year’s “Ratzinger Prize” for 2024 are, left, Irish theologian Cyril O’Regan, a professor at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, USA, and, right, Japanese sculptor Etsurō Sotoo, who has spent much of his life working on the sculptures of Basilica of La Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family, link) in Barcelona, Spain. The two prize winners flank Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin (center), who awarded the prizes this evening in Vatican City
Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, personal secretary of the late Pope Benedict XVI, on the evening of Thursday, November 21, in Rome’s LUMSA University lecture hall, to present the latest volume, Volume 13, containing the late Pope’s interview with two dozen journalists over several decades, in the Opera Omnia, Italian edition, of Pope Benedict’s works
Myself, wearing my blue winter overcoat over my black suit jacket, with Archbishop Georg Gaenswein on November 21 in Rome, after the presentation of the latest volume in the Italian edition of Pope Benedict‘s complete works, the Opera Omnia
Letter #53, 2024, Friday, November 22: Ratzinger Prize
Wet cobblestones glistened in the darkness just before the dawn this morning in St. Peter’s Square.
At 6:30 a.m., the square was nearly empty.
Here and there, two or three dark figures under umbrellas walked toward their destinations.
I tugged my jacket up over my neck to protect against the chilly November rain.
On the other side of the square, waiting to go into the basilica for a special Mass, was my colleague, Anna Artymiak of Poland. We were soon joined by three or four others, from Germany and Italy.
“We can go into the basilica now,” Anna said. “There is no line. We are the first.”
We had come to attend a commemorative Mass in memory of Pope Benedict XVI, to be celebrated next to Pope Benedict’s tomb — and also just a few steps away from the tomb of St. Peter — at 7:15 a.m. We were almost 45 minutes early.
The Mass was to be celebrated by Pope Benedict’s longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, who served Benedict for two years before he became Pope, then for almost eight years as Pope (2005-2103), then for almost 10 years as Emeritus Pope (2013-2022). Gaenswein is now the nuncio of Pope Francis to Lithuania.
We walked under the drizzle, toward the gates at the center of the facade. The gates were opened for us by the guard on duty. We entered the empty basilica, almost completely alone.
***
St. Peter’s is a paradox.
Immense, filled with treasures, it is at the same time a place of tears.
It rises like a hymn toward the infinite, and yet bears witness to the tears of a single fisherman who ages ago denied his friend, then wept.
Each time I walk into the vast basilica, I think of Peter, and recall one of the most powerful and human passages in all the scriptures.
Peter was so frightened after the violent arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane that, when the maid-servant asked him, “Weren’t you with Jesus?” he replied, “No, you are mistaken, I do not even know the man.”
Peter had been with Jesus daily for three years.
He was the disciple Jesus had chosen to be the leader of his followers.
Yet Peter could say he never knew Jesus.
And repeat it twice more.
Then comes one of the most moving passages in scripture.
The cock crows.
Peter hears the sound.
And he remembers that Jesus had told him he would deny him thrice before the cock would crow, just before dawn.
And then, scripture says, Peter “wept bitter tears.”
“Bitter tears.”
Bitter because he had done what he had sworn he would never do.
Bitter because he had been untrue to his own deepest commitment, his own deepest self.
He had not, like Judas, actually betrayed Christ, but he had denied ever being with him, denied having known him, and in so doing, he had betrayed himself.
And in so doing, he had shown his own profound weakness, and unworthiness.
Yes, his tears were “bitter” and the bitterness was justified.
Drill, having wept those tears, and having then come to know of Jesus’ suffering on Good Friday and of his death that afternoon, and then having passed through the silence of Holy Saturday, Peter was yet willing — when Mary Magdalene told the disciples that she had been to the tomb, and found it empty — to run to the tomb on Easter morning, and to look inside, and see that it was empty, except for some linen cloths, and in that moment to set out again on the journey he had interrupted due to his weakness and fear.
St. Peter’s always reminds me of Peter’s “bitter tears” — especially this morning, a drizzly November morning, and, even more especially, because this morning we entered to commemorate “Peter” — Pope Benedict XVI, the 265th successor of the fisherman who wept such bitter tears… —RM
Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd at the end of his final general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Feb. 27. Looking on is Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household and the pope’s personal secretary. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) (Feb. 27, 2013)
Here is a report by Anna Artymiak about today:
Mass at the Tomb of Pope Benedict
By Anna Artymiak
November 22, 2024
This morning, Friday, November 22, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Apostolic Nuncio to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, and the legendary private secretary of Pope Benedict XVI (2003-2022) celebrated the Holy Mass at the tomb of the late Holy Father. The archbishop came to Rome for the awarding of the Ratzinger Prize which took place this afternoon in the Apostolic Place. It was the second time the winners have been awarded since Benedict’s passing away.
The Catholic Church celebrates today the Feast of St. Cecilia, patron of sacred music. So during this morning’s Mass, there couldn’t be missing beautiful liturgical chants. The Holy Father, who played the piano, was known for his love for music. The chants were presented by a student choir from the Angelicum University in Rome.
The Eucharist was the core of the Christian life of Pope Benedict XVI, therefore naturally there has been born a tradition of the Holy Masses at his tomb in the Vatican Grottos. Since the first Mass on the 30th day of his return to the “Father’s house” celebrated on January 31st 2023 — he died on the last day of 2022, December 31 — every month there is said the Holy Mass in the same place: at the modern Altar of the Tomb of St. Peter which is right next to the tomb of Benedict XVI. This is the same place where John Paul II was buried after his death until his beatification, when his tomb was moved upstairs to the main level of the basilica.
When Archbishop Georg Gänswein lived in Rome, it was he who celebrated the Eucharist every month. Today it is the Vatican Foundation of Joseph Ratzinger-Pope Benedict XVI which takes care for the liturgy every month. The Holy Mass is celebrated usually on the last Saturday of the month, if there aren’t any other celebrations of important feasts like the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. This month, because of the prize awards, it was anticipated to be November 22.
There were present at the Eucharist two winners of the 2024 edition: Prof. Cyril O’Regan, an Irish professor of Systematic Theology working at the University of Notre Dame; and Etsurō Sotoo, a Japanese sculptor, converted to Catholicism thanks to Antoni Gaudi‘s Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, Spain. (Gaudi lived from 1852 to 1926.)
The Holy Mass in memory of Benedict XVI was celebrated in Italian to allow more people to attend and understand it. Included among the simple pilgrims were, very discreetly, people who had worked and lived with the late Pope.
Information about the Masses are published on the Vatican Foundation website (link)
Professor Cyril O’Regan
Photo credit: University of Notre Dame
Etsurō Sotoo
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
The bios from the Vatican Foundation of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI (link)
THE PRIZE WINNERS
Prof. Cyril O’Regan (Ireland, 1952)
Professor of Systematic Theology in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA).
Professor O’Regan studied philosophy in Ireland. He then earned the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy (1985) and Doctor of Theology (1989) at Yale University (USA). He became a professor in 1990 at Yale University, Department of Religious Studies, and since 1999 at the University of Notre Dame, Department of Theology.
His main fields of study are systematic Theology and the History of Christianity.
He is the author of many articles and diverse works, including The Heterodox Hegel (1994); Gnostic Return in Modernity (2001); Theology and the Spaces of Apocalyptic (2009); The Anatomy of Misremembering: Balthasar’s Response to Philosophical Modernity (2 volumes.); Newman and Ratzinger (publication in progress).
Professor O’Regan does a great deal of teaching and is much appreciated for his attentive teaching relationship to students. He has devoted several important articles to the figure and teaching of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI.
Etsurō Sotoo (Fukuoka, Japan, 1953)
Etsurō Sotoo graduated in Fine Arts from Kyoto University (Japan) and he first taught in Kyoto and Osaka.
As he was visiting Barcelona, Spain, in 1978, he was very impressed by the construction of the “Sagrada Familia” Basilica and asked to work there as a sculptor, beginning with the Nativity Façade, following instructions left by Antoni Gaudí. He converted to Christianity and was baptized. He is an ardent devotee of Gaudí and is also committed to his cause for canonization.
His major works are in various parts of the church of the “Sagrada Familia”, but also in other places in Spain, Japan and even Italy, having created the ambo of Florence’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, in 2015.
He is the first East Asian and the first sculptor to be awarded the Ratzinger Prize.
As is well known, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the Basilica of the “Sagrada Familia” during a trip to Barcelona in 2010, expressing high appreciation for the figure and art of Antoni Gaudí.
THE RATZINGER PRIZE
The Ratzinger Prize is the principal initiative of the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI. It is awarded, according to the Statutes, to “scholars who have distinguished themselves for with particular merit in the activity of publication and/or scientific research.” In recent years, the scope of the awardees has also expanded to include the arts practiced with Christian inspiration.
Nominations for the Prize are proposed to the Holy Father for his approval by the Foundation’s Scientific Committee, which consists of five members appointed by the Pope. It currently consists of Cardinals Kurt Koch (Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity), Luis Ladaria (Prefect Emeritus of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith), Gianfranco Ravasi (President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Culture), His Exc. Msgr. Salvatore Fisichella (Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization) and by His Exc. Msgr. Rudolf Voderholzer(Bishop of Regensburg and President of the Institut Papst Benedikt XVI).
The Prize has been awarded annually, starting in 2011, each time to two (exceptionally three) scholars.
With the 2024 edition, the Awardees will reach a total number of 30. They are mainly eminent personalities in the studies of Dogmatic or Fundamental Theology, Sacred Scripture, Patrology, Philosophy, Law, Sociology, or in artistic activity, music, architecture and now also sculpture.
Confirming the worldwide cultural horizon of the Prize, the honored personalities come from as many as 18 different countries, on the five continents: Germany (7), France (4), Spain (3), Italy (2), Australia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Estonia, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Lebanon, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland and the United States.
The awardees are not only Catholic, but also belong to other Christian denominations — one Anglican, one Lutheran, two Orthodox — and one awardee was Jewish.
Introduction by Father Lombardi for the 2024 Ratzinger Awards Ceremony (November 22 – Sala Regia)
By Father Federico Lombardi
The Most Reverend Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State,
Your Eminences Cardinals Koch, Ladaria and Ravasi and Your Excellency Monsignor Fisichella, members of the Scientific Committee of the Foundation,
Your Excellency Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, dear Don Giorgio, truly welcome back among us on this occasion,
Your Eminences and Excellencies present,
Distinguished new Awardees — Prof. Cyril O’Regan and Maestro Etsuro Sotoo — and illustrious Awardees of past years, professors Beré, Blanco Sarto, Chrostowski, Rowland, Schaller and Schlosser,
Ecclesiastical and academic authorities, welcome guests, dear friends
I heartily thank all those present for having accepted the invitation of our Foundation for this occasion of culture and hope that brings us together in the dear memory of our beloved Pope Benedict XVI almost two years after his passing to the eternal homeland.
This morning, together with the award winners, with Msgr. Gaenswein and other people present here, we gathered in prayer in the Vatican Grottoes, near the tomb of St. Peter and the tomb of Pope Benedict, to feel in deep spiritual union with him, so that he continues to accompany us and inspire us on our journey of faith and Christian commitment.
Then, with the two illustrious award winners, we were received by the Holy Father Francis, to have his blessing and to attest to him once again the closeness and desire of our Foundation and of all of us to be fully included in the journey of the Church guided by him and to contribute to it according to our vocation and ability.
In this festive meeting, which every year represents the highest and most significant moment in the journey of this Foundation, allow me to share with you a very simple but truly heartfelt consideration. With the passing of time, it does not seem to us that our mission is running out, but rather is being confirmed. From different countries and continents we often receive news of new cultural and academic initiatives, institutes, chairs, research projects and so on, which refer to Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI, to his thought and his work, and which are born and develop by their own vitality, but desire and seek to enter into a relationship with each other to enrich and support each other, in the belief of the relevance and fruitfulness of the inspiration of this great Pope, looking not so much to the past as to the future of the mission of the Church and the questions of humanity. With some of these initiatives and institutions, our Foundation has established more stable relationships of collaboration over the years, with others it has promoted common initiatives. Several of them are represented here and we are very grateful for it. Listing them today would take too long.
I will therefore limit myself to mentioning the most recent, the establishment of a “Benedict XVI Chair” at Saint Mary’s University in Minnesota (of which I greet the President, Rev. P. James Burns). This initiative is intended to contribute in an interdisciplinary perspective to the educational project of young people, referring in particular to the teachings of the last three pontiffs. Furthermore, it is intended to support and promote the English translation of Joseph Ratzinger’s Opera Omnia, so as to broaden the knowledge and dissemination of his thought in the academic and cultural environment. We are grateful to the Word on Fire publishing group for making this far-reaching initiative possible, open to all who wish to join.
But let us now come to the award ceremony, which, like every year, shows gratitude and appreciation for two illustrious personalities whose work has stood out, over time, for the cultural depth and human and spiritual values of which they are witnesses and bearers.
Professor O’Regan and Maestro Etsuro Sotoo were born in Ireland and Japan respectively: with them, the origins of the awardees expand to 18 different countries, spread across the five continents. The welcome presence today of a good number of the awardees from previous editions demonstrates that they come to constitute a “community” in a certain sense. A global community from a geographical point of view, and ecumenical from a religious point of view, which recognizes itself in the great ideals of Ratzinger-Benedict: cultivating an “open reason”, an intelligence in research and dialogue, which ranges across disciplines and the arts making us “cooperators of the truth”, so that it can nourish minds, hearts, life.
The two winners will shortly be introduced and will introduce themselves with their words. Allow me to make a few remarks on the significance of their entry into what I have just defined as the “community” of the recipients of the Ratzinger Prize.
With Prof. O’Regan our gaze is not only directed towards his native Ireland, but also towards the English-speaking academic and theological world of North America, the United States, where most of his academic activity took place. In recent years the Foundation’s relationships and Conferences have repeatedly oriented themselves towards the English-speaking American context, with the 2022 International Conference at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, then with the aforementioned regular collaboration with St Mary’s University and in recent months with a beautiful International Symposium at the De Nicola Center of the University of Notre Dame, thanks to which we met Prof. Cyril O’Regan.
With the master Etsuro Sotoo our gaze turns together towards Japan and Spain, where in Barcelona what is probably the greatest Christian artistic undertaking of the contemporary era is coming to completion, the immense Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, a courageous sign of faith not only of an extraordinary genius like Gaudì, but of a great people eager to give glory to God, for his creation and his incarnation in the human family. The consecration of that church and its altar, in 2010, was the last and most solemn of those accomplished by Benedict XVI. As we know, Pope Benedict has repeatedly expressed his concern for the decline of God’s presence on the horizon of Western humanity. But the strength and creativity of faith in shaping matter to make it a manifestation and space for the spirit are still present and alive. The work of the sculptor joins that of the architect in this extraordinary mission.
This award ceremony is therefore at the same time a joyful recognition for the good done so far by these two great friends of ours and a wish for the continuation of their work, as well as an act of grateful remembrance for the precious legacy that Pope Benedict has left us. But allow me to say that it also wants to be a further step, full of confidence in the fruitfulness of this legacy, which shows itself open to a universal horizon, sowing seeds and producing fruits in the most diverse languages and cultures.
Thank you for your attention and kindness.
Speech by Card. Parolin (Ratzinger Awards 2024 – 22 Nov. 2024 – Sala Regia)
[Note: This prepared text was intended to be read at the prize award ceremony, but due to time restraints, was set aside and Cardinal Parolin reduced his remarks to three or four sentences, prior to giving his blessing to those present.]
By Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Yours Eminences, Excellencies,
I am pleased to be able to preside over this significant award ceremony of the Ratzinger Awards 2024 this year too.
I greet their eminences and excellencies present, in particular Cardinal Ravasi and His Excellency Fisichella, whom I thank for their presentations of the award winners, and His Excellency Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, personally linked more than all of us to the beloved Pope Benedict XVI, whose memory is very much alive on this occasion.
I greet the members of the Foundation and all the scholars and friends of Pope Benedict who have come in such great numbers.
As is clear from the Statutes of the Foundation, which correspond to the intentions of the Pope himself, “the awarding of prizes to scholars and personalities with particular merits in publishing, scientific research or artistic production” is one of the activities to achieve the purpose of the Foundation, aimed at promoting theology and Christian-inspired arts.
I therefore congratulate and rejoice with the prizewinners themselves – Prof. Cyril O’Regan and Maestro Etsuro Sotoo – who with the value of their thought and their art come to further enlarge, as was observed at the beginning by Father Lombardi, the singular community of the Prizewinners, which is here authoritatively represented by several past prizewinners, whom I also greet. It is not just a question of scientific authority or artistic fame. From the speeches of the prizewinners, we also grasped the spirit that animated and animates their work. Allow us a brief reflection on this subject.
Often “awards” are characterized by assignment criteria linked to a specific discipline or to merits acquired in a certain field of activity. The assignment criteria for the Ratzinger Prize are instead very broad, and yet we can recognize in the now long series of figures of the prize winners a non-superficial unity and coherence. In a certain sense, we could speak of “consonance” with the thought, sensitivity, human and Christian testimony of Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI. We can and must also read this “consonance” in the assignment of this prize.
The reflection and teaching of Ratzinger-Benedict have ranged over a very broad range of theological and cultural problems and themes, and we can also say social and political, but he has never lost the ability to see them and to highlight their relationship with God through the search for truth. In this, his fruitful idea that human reason must always remain “open” has manifested itself, that every discipline must not close itself in a sterile positivism, that the questions on the meaning of life, of history, of the world, always remain current, necessary, dutiful for people of every time, culture and situation. And even if he is convinced that the ultimate answer to these questions is found in the truth that is revealed in Christ, the search for this truth and its deepest understanding always remains an open and surprising task, without which the dignity of the human person is debased and the direction of his journey is lost.
As Professor O’Regan has emphasized in several of his profound profiles of Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI, his voice has always been characterized by a profound humility, by the clear will to be the voice not of himself, but of the tradition of the Church, at the service of the voice of the Lord Jesus; his vision has always been centered on God, who reveals himself by giving us every good in Jesus Christ.
In this regard, it seems appropriate to recall some passages from one of his homilies, given not by chance on the feast of Saint Benedict, and inspired by the invitation “Listen, my son!”, which opens the Rule of the Holy Father of Western monasticism. Pope Benedict says that this invitation brings to mind the first chapter of the Apocalypse, in which the great theophany, the great vision, is described: John sees the Pantocrator in all his immense grandeur and newness, the Risen One with all his power, and describes the details of this figure of Christ who appears to him, and says: “His voice was like the sound of many waters” (v. 15). The Fathers interpret the “great waters” that are “his voice” as all the rivers of Sacred Scripture, whose waters, so different, from a thousand years of writings, are rivers that all flow toward Jesus, and if we listen to them well, they are his voice.
And Pope Ratzinger continues: “Saint Benedict, with his Rule, did not have the pretension of writing an original book, only his own, with his private voice, as was the pretension of the great thinkers of the modern era, who wanted to show their genius and create a monument to themselves with their books. Benedict, on the contrary, wanted to give voice to Christ and make the voice of the ‘great waters’ heard. Christ really, with all the voices of the Head and the Body, with the voices of Scripture and of the living Church, with the ‘great waters’ of this Tradition, speaks to us, and in the roar of these waters we really hear the multiplicity, the richness, the beauty of the voice of Christ, the voice of Truth.
“Thus, it seems to me,” Pope Benedict concludes, “we can on the one hand learn that humility of those who do not emphasize themselves, but seek to insert themselves into the greatness of Truth itself, and on the other hand we can hear this polyphonic concert. And thus enjoy the richness, the beauty, the truth, truly hear Christ Pantocrator who speaks to us, with all the voices of creation and history, and hear more and more the richness of Truth in his great voice.”
All the voices of creation and history, and of course especially the voices of the history of salvation, are those that art also helps us to hear and see. True art makes matter transparent to the spirit. We experience this in a fascinating way in the immense undertaking of the construction of the Sagrada Familia in all its details, including the works of the master Sotoo. We have heard of their meaning and inspiration from his own lips. The stone, apparently hard and inert, thanks to the creative work of the architect and the sculptor, to the toil of the craftsman and the worker, becomes the living voice of God’s creation and a manifestation of his beauty and his love, a space where the assembly of the Church, itself made up of living stones built on the rock that is Christ, meets God in prayer and in the celebration of the sacraments.
As we recall, the motto chosen by the bishop and Pope Benedict is “Cooperatores Veritatis”. This remains the motto of those who dedicate their lives to making truth shine in all its forms, with intelligence, research and teaching, with the genius and effort of artistic expression, with the testimony of their human and ecclesial service. This is therefore the motto that also characterizes the life and work of the award winners, and that today we entrust to them so that they continue to be effective witnesses.
Today, in light of the approaching opening of the Jubilee, which Pope Francis has placed under the sign of hope, I would like to conclude by recalling that the voice of Benedict is one of the high voices of hope that must accompany us. His unforgettable encyclical Spe salvi is dedicated entirely to hope, to human hopes and to Christian hope. In the dark times we are living through, Benedict XVI is a teacher who, while knowing the presence of evil and the tragedies of historical events, helps us to raise our gaze and find solid foundations to continue to look forward, towards unity, truth, beauty, love. With courage and passion, he comes to speak to us of the mystery of God’s judgment on the world and on history in the light of justice and mercy, encouraging us to carry in faith and hope the terrible weight of the raging hatred and evil that oppress our era and crush countless human lives around us every day.
The vision of Christ Pantocrator, which he contemplated in his reflection and prayer until the last days of his life and to which he entrusted himself with trust, is a vision of great hope, for each and every one. When the glorious Christ opens his mouth he says, “Do not be afraid! I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades” (Rev 1:17-18).
Pope Benedict continues to accompany us so that we too can participate, in harmony with him, in his vision of faith, charity and hope.
Ratzinger Prize:
Speech on the Dedication of the Holy Family and my activity as a sculptor
Sotoo Etsuro
By Etsuro Sotoo
Your Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Your Eminence Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, Your Excellency Monsignor Salvatore Fisichella, Reverend Father Federico Lombardi,
Dear ladies, gentlemen and friends,
Today, as I remember that unforgettable day when the Sagrada Familia was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI, on November 7, 2010, I once again feel his words resonating in me, like a sacred echo in every stone, in every detail of this living work. His homily was not only a message of faith and hope, it was like the note of a melody; I think that we are simply part of a note of the divine score, a breath that seemed to give life to the temple and to ourselves. I felt then, as I feel today, that working on the Sagrada Familia is not just an architectural or artistic project, but a calling, a divine purpose.
The dedication was much more than a religious ceremony. It was a moment in which each of us, from the architects, sculptors and craftsmen, to the humblest visitor, witnessed the transcendence of this work and felt that that day we had received a great reward. We felt that we were building something that does not belong only to Barcelona, Catalonia or Spain, but to all humanity, a gift addressed to all of us. The universality of this church was evident, which stands not only as a symbol of faith, but as an invitation to peace, to the encounter between cultures and beliefs. That day I understood, in a very personal way, that Gaudí’s dream of creating a “people’s cathedral,” had stopped being a dream. It had become reality!
When I first came to Barcelona from Japan, in 1978, I remember feeling like a stranger in a strange land. Every street, every corner, seemed full of stories and symbols that, at first, were foreign to me. However, when I began to work the stone, when I took the chisel and began to sculpt, I knew that the stone has its own language, a language that does not need translation, and that is why I came to look for the stone from Japan to Europe.
Stone is great art or something more. Art, in its purest form, is a universe of stone, to the end of the universe where no one has gone and we cannot go, but I know that the stone is there. Working on the Sagrada Familia made me understand that, despite coming from different cultures, we share a common essence that can be expressed not only through art, because I discovered that Gaudí had a somewhat oriental intuition. Over time I began to feel that my Japanese roots and this Catalan land were connected, like two branches of the same tree, that meet in the spirituality of creation. I want to explain the fruits and leaves that I worked on: more than 200 pieces, each more or less a ton, each piece finished in five days, that is, on Monday I brought the stone and on Friday I delivered it. No one knew what sense they had. Gaudí’s disciples had ordered me to put fruits with leaves underneath, the fruits in stone; above the fruits, colorful Venetian mosaic, and below the fruits and leaves in stone. But why, what does it mean? I needed to understand it in order to sculpt, because a sculptor does not simply cut stone without sense and meaning, and if I did not understand it I could not work. So I investigated, but since no one knew, I had to invent. We grow thanks to words. And we ourselves are fruits, I say it with the words of Pope Ratzinger: “We are fruits of nature.”
We must not only respect nature, Gaudí said that nature is his teacher, for example, fruits and leaves. In Japan, in nature without leaves fruits do not grow or ripen. In Japan, we grow and ripen thanks to words, because we write words with signs. The ideogram for Kotoba, word is composed of two signs: “say” and “leaves”, and literally means “to make saying a leaf”. My heart tells me that with this truth people feel or learn, and that here lies the secret that animated Gaudí: leaves and fruits as a symbol of the growth of our soul, because this temple is a tool to make us grow. I imagine that Gaudí did not know the Japanese language, but since he learned from nature, that is, nature was his teacher, and our culture also comes from nature, we arrive at the same answer.
This is how I immersed myself in the spirit of this work, feeling deeply Japanese and at the same time a child of this city, like a seed that was born in Japan and flew to Barcelona, a Mediterranean city, a rich land where it grows, adapting and developing far beyond my expectations. In every sculpture, in every figure that I sketched, I wanted to convey something of that duality, of that encounter between worlds that enriches, adds and deepens our identity, because the more different the cultures that unite, the newer and stronger the culture that is born.
Perhaps there is no better example than the Portal of the Nativity, where the musician angels and the children’s choir celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus. For me, these sculptures are not just stone figures. They are a song to life, an attempt to capture those children in stone as if they were my own living children, as if each figure were about to move, dance or sing. This is Gaudí’s secret: he always looked for forms that would make the stone statue seem alive, in motion. Many people discuss art. Art is not art because of its antiquity, much less because of the price attributed to it, but because it is always alive, so that every time we see paintings, read books, listen to music, we always hear something new: this is art. And Gaudí said: “Beauty is the splendor of truth.”
This is why the children’s choir has a very special place in my heart. There is a mischievous child who seems to want to come down to caress Baby Jesus, a gesture so simple and human and, at the same time, so sacred.
When I started working with stone, a very old man came to see me and said: “That child is me, when I was nine or ten years old I used to play ball in front of the Sagrada Familia and every time Mr. Gaudí passed by we stopped the game, we stopped as a sign of respect. One day this Mr. Gaudí came up to me and, putting his hand on my head, said: ‘I’ll give you a sweet if you’ll be a model’. I didn’t know what a model was, with my friends I went to visit his studio”.
I didn’t expect to see a living model of that facade, I thought they were all dead, and I’m also happy to have made something very similar to that man. Isn’t that what we all feel inside? That impulse to get closer, to touch the divine. We’re not just making a figure and much less a monument, but we have to make something real. The Baby Jesus who is there is not made of stone, everyone wants to see him as he was two thousand years ago, where he really existed, everyone wants to be there, together with the Magi, present at the most important and magnificent event of that moment. I believe that in that gesture is enclosed the living message of Gaudí, his desire that the Sagrada Familia be a meeting place between the celestial and the human. In those small details, in those expressions of tenderness and curiosity, I wanted to leave a message to all those who will visit this church: that love, in its purest form, is what unites us all. This façade-altarpiece, which would normally be found inside the temple, has been placed outside to invite people, whether or not they are interested; it calls everyone.
The life-size plaster model that I spent ten years turning into stone is now in Kyoto, Japan, where it will be inaugurated next December at the Kyoto City Fine Arts University, which is next to Kyoto Station: if you go to Japan one day and visit Kyoto, you will be able to see it for free.
People wonder how we can continue to build without Gaudí. Art is not that someone made a mistake and we follow this wrong path, art is, like science, the search for the right answer, because even if Gaudí is no longer here and has left no data, if we look where Gaudí looked, we always find the right answer. This is my way of building the Sagrada Familia.
Today, almost a century and a half after Gaudí began working on it, we are closer than ever to seeing the Sagrada Familia completed. But I wonder: even when the architectural project is finished, is it really possible for a work like this to be finished? Can you say that something that is growing is finished? The Sagrada Familia is not just a construction; it is a symbol of our ability to create something bigger than ourselves, something that lasts, that transcends. Gaudí said: “The more we put into it, the better, because the owner of that house is in no hurry.” I would add that this temple is an eternal instrument that builds us: Pope Benedict said in his homily that “the Church has no consistency by itself; it is called to be a sign and an instrument.”
Personally, I know that my mission in this work is not finished. There will always be something more to do, some detail to perfect, some space to fill with meaning, something to restore and improve. Gaudí said that his true client was God and I believe that, in some way, all of us who work here feel this same vocation. My work is not just to sculpt the stone, but to give it life, to transmit through it the faith and love that Gaudí dreamed. Always thinking: how can we give happiness to this great client, God? The answer is: “We simply try to make ourselves happy, as every parent feels happy when they see their children happy, loved.”
So, as long as there is a spark of creativity, as long as there is a stone waiting to be carved, I will remain here, serving this work with humility and devotion. In the meantime, let us try to improve the work, learning, building ourselves as human beings.
For me, the Sagrada Familia is not just a building under construction: it is a prayer that rises, a song that celebrates the greatness of God and the nobility of the human spirit. And I know that, in this place, I will always find a home, a reason to move forward, a purpose that fills my heart. We are simply a note in the score that harmonizes the music of God.
When I see visitors marvel at the sculptures, stopping to observe every detail, I know that my work, our work, takes on meaning. The work of the Sagrada Familia is an invitation to dialogue with God, to peace, to communion. And that is, in the end, what gives me strength. I feel that my life, my culture, my history and each of the days I have dedicated to this Basilica have not only been worth it, but I feel built by it, not it by me.
The Sagrada Familia will continue to be a beacon of hope and love for all who visit it. And I, as long as God and destiny allow it, will remain here, taking care of it, sculpting, dreaming and working so that every corner of this temple reflects the divine light, that light that unites us and reminds us that, in the end, “we are all one in love.”
An anecdote from that November 7, 2010: after the solemn ceremony, they asked me to wait for Pope Benedict XVI “Ratzinger” on the path to the Door of the Nativity, which Gaudí had begun to build and I had completed. Before Pope Ratzinger went to address the people, I was supposed to have a brief audience with him.
But when the Pope was almost there, a step away from where I was, a young guard came and stopped right in front of me. And the Pope, seeing her, with a gesture that I immediately understood, opened his arms and with his gaze, with that gesture he said to me: “It cannot be avoided,” and he passed in front of me, staring at me (I thought about kicking the young guard in the heel, but I didn’t).
Why did it happen this way? I still feel astonished and helpless today. However, thanks to all of you who are here today, I feel strongly embraced by Pope Ratzinger, which was impossible then, and I am deeply moved.
People are imperfect. I would like to add “fortunately.” The reason is that no matter how much you wish or how hard you try, things do not always come to pass. However, if you wait obediently, there will always be a result that humans cannot produce through calculations, that humans could never think of. Gaudí called it Gozo, “Joy,” and hoped that the Basilica would be filled with Gozos.
Furthermore, “words” are also imperfect, which shows that we humans are also imperfect.
Only the Word of God is perfect and speaks the truth.
What God truly desires are people who continue to learn while the Basilica is being built with sincerity. We must build it as ourselves eternally!
To help imperfect human beings and their unstable words, Gaudí used many new symbolisms to directly convey to the world, especially to young people, the meaning of the Bible, which goes beyond words, beyond language. In the words of Pope Benedict: “Not with words, but with stones.”
This is the modern mission of building the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia.
I am currently working and waiting for the interior design of the Tower of Jesus to be finished, the largest and most important tower in the entire Sagrada Familia. Here my reflections of the modern firmament recall the idea of the simple essence: “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. It is 60 meters high, a single space to be filled with messages from God and physics and quantum physics, with more than 32,000 pieces of colored ceramics. It will reflect all the elements that God has given us. Due to the regulations of the Sagrada Familia I cannot yet show the photos to the public, but next year it will be completed with ceramic colors, a system that I invented, similar to watercolor, and it will be possible to visit it. I am also working on some symbols of the keystones of the vault of the cloister, on both sides of the Nativity Facade; one is new for the Virgin of Montserrat and on the other side there is the continuation of the Virgin of the Rosary, which Gaudí built as a testament that he cared a lot about, but unfortunately it was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War and I restored it at the request of Gaudí’s disciples. They are a very important message to continue, to walk, towards the future of humanity. Also supervising the enormous monument that is being completed as a new symbol of Christianity, next to the Tower of Jesus, since Gaudí left nothing, it is my job to create a new symbol, of water, fire and wind. And the earth represents the Tower of the Virgin Mary.
I have been working there for 46 years and I will continue to do so even more strongly thanks to this award and your support.
Many thanks.
外尾悦郎
Sotoo Etsuro
RATZINGER PRIZE AWARD CEREMONY
By Prof. Cyril O’Regan
On an occasion like this, only a naive person would hesitate to express immediate and heartfelt thanks to Cardinal Pietro Parolin (Secretary of State) who, representing the judgment of the Ratzinger Foundation, has conferred this honor on both me and the extraordinary sculptor Etsuro Sotoo.
And in the same way it is right to thank from the bottom of my heart the distinguished scholars who make up the scientific committee of the Ratzinger Foundation, Cardinals Koch, Ladaria, Ravasi and the most excellent Monsignors Fisichella and Voderholzer, who made the final recommendation regarding the awardees. The visibility you have given me with this award demands full public recognition.
And it so happens that there are words in languages large and small, some alive and some fallen into disuse, that are appropriate to the occasion. They are words like danke, gracias, grazie, merci, as well as the English thank you. There are Irish phrases like go raibh mait agat (may good things happen to you) and the slightly more hyperbolic go raibh mile maith agat (may a thousand good things happen to you), the Scottish pair tapadh leat and the hyperbolic cead mile taing (a hundred thousand thanks), and the Welsh expression diolch or diolch fawr, and finally, since we should mourn the dying languages that leave us poorer, let me add Guramieayd in the now almost obsolete Manx (Isle of Manx) tongue.
I wish to express my thanks in all these languages, firstly because, being Irish, more is always better; secondly, because one term or another will resonate more deeply with a particular member of the scientific committee; and thirdly, for me, because some of these expressions sound very meaningful and familiar to an Irishman who has spent more than half his life in the United States and who would like on this occasion to clothe himself in a language that was once so familiar to him that he once considered these other Celtic languages as a sort of extended family, to be gotten to know sooner or later.
Whatever the deep roots of these words, there is no doubt that they serve today as protocols, as ointments that keep society functioning through the mutual exchange of honor. But these words fail to fully capture what I mean about this award and how I felt when I received the news of it from Father Lombardi before the official announcement of this year’s honorees on September 18.
His letter was a bolt from the blue, though fortunately, unlike Jupiter’s thunderbolt, it did me no harm. I felt a sense of pleasure, but I refrain from saying satisfaction, if by satisfaction you mean a feeling of full justification.
Nor did I feel a sense of deserved recognition, though, as you might imagine, friends and colleagues began and ended their congratulations with “well deserved” and other such phrases.
I find it hard to agree with that, for reasons I can readily give; On the other hand, I am aware that if I had insisted on telling all those good people who congratulated me that I did not really deserve this award, I would have exhibited a sanctity that I do not possess. But that does not change the truth of the matter.
For the benefit of those who know Leibniz, Heidegger, and the Christian mystical tradition, on purely intellectual grounds, it must be said that the choice that fell upon me does not satisfy the principle of sufficient reason. I believe in reason, as do most Catholics, and I am convinced that a process of discernment occurred in the course of which reasons were provided for awarding me, and that those reasons ultimately proved convincing.
Yet, faced with the vast variety of options, not to mention the fact that in every possible category one could find extraordinarily talented people, it would be futile for me not to regard my selection as something akin to an election, which takes on the aspect of a gift rather than of recognition. Perhaps not a gift in the Pascalian sense of caritas, but still a gift in the Catholic sense of something that is beyond reason, while not necessarily hostile to it.
My “saying thank you”, therefore, now changes register, moving to a more dispositional one, and with it this time I will use another Irish word that seems more suitable to express gratitude for Cardinal Parolin, the scientific committee and Father Lombardi who was kindness in person. This other Irish word is Buiochas which, not by chance, is usually associated with God: Buiochas le Dia, which means “thanks to God”. The connection between the two terms is so close that we rarely – if ever – find the word Buiochas alone.
In keeping with the above register of thanks, I wish to thank my wife, Geraldine Meehan, who for the last two-thirds of my life has given meaning to my actions and passions, has often turned my “should” into “can” and my “can” into “should,” and whose laughter enlivens life and tinges every passing moment with joy. I wish to thank my son, Niall, who could not be here, for the courage to grow up to be the man he is and to become, so to speak, the hero of his own story.
To all present, I also wish to commend Geraldine’s extraordinary father, 97, as a lifelong example of Catholic faith in action, an example I cannot match.
And I cannot miss the opportunity to remember my mother, Philomena, who led a life of suffering and deprivation, and to whom I owe the very fibre of my soul, the heart of all my longings and the hope for all that is lost in herself and in others.
I want to thank my siblings Michael, Marianne, and Tommy (may he rest in peace), their children, and their children’s children.
I want to express my gratitude to the magnificent band of Notre Dame in the audience, especially my dear friends Jenny and Jay Martin, both of whom are great theologians, as well as Father Edward Ondrako and Father Aaron Pidel, both of whom I have had the honor of teaching.
I want to remember my good friends and colleagues from Notre Dame who are not here, because they have meant and continue to mean the world to me, especially Larry Cunningham who is currently in hospice care.
I want to thank Tony Sciglitano, who teaches at Seton Hall, who has demonstrated for over thirty years what it means to be a true friend. I must also mention my Irish friends in Ireland and abroad, especially a friend in Father Brendan Purcell, who was a teacher and mentor and the priest who married my wife and me, the unforgettable companions of my youth Tony Mullins and Donal Conway, and my two extraordinarily gifted fellow travelers and intellectuals, David Walsh and William Desmond: the former working at the intersection of metaphysics, history and politics, the latter at that of metaphysics, theology and poetics.
Finally, I thank all the students (undergraduate and postgraduate) whom I have had the opportunity to teach, especially the nearly 150 doctoral students with whom I have collaborated in some way in the preparation of doctoral theses that were as varied and brilliant as they were. They have given me much more than I have given them. They left me free to imagine with them and for them what distant country they might enter, and they allowed me, in the exile from myself that this imagining brought me, to be more myself rather than less. They enriched me and made me the kind of contrapuntal thinker I believe myself to be.
This second round of acknowledgments in a more dispositional register leads me naturally to the question of whether gratitude can be considered the fundamental disposition of the theologian. My longtime friend and colleague, John Cavadini, in his more than thirty years of teaching at Notre Dame told every undergraduate he met that there is a definition of theology that is hiding in plain sight: it is learning how to say “thank you.” This is hardly a reductive description in terms of catechesis, and certainly not in the context of a world culture increasingly inclined to avoid saying “thank you” at all costs. It is no coincidence that Cavadini is an Augustine scholar, and indeed in due course I will turn to the great Latin Father who seems to have the pulse of our age as well as his own and who offers us, especially in the Confessions, what we might consider the model of the attitude and disposition that characterize the theologian.
I will not do so, however, before speaking of the ecclesiastic and theologian after whom the Foundation that awards this prize takes its name. In every biography of Benedict XVI, reference is made to the fact that in 1969 he left Tübingen for Regensburg.
Usually this fact is described in both a laconic and a sensationalist manner; laconic because it is presented as a simple change of postal address, not unusual for academics, and sensationalist because it represents a political act, a form of protest against a theological institution built to promote prestige and dissent as the only two possible theological paths. It is certainly true that this abandonment took on a critical valence, because Ratzinger had perceived an eclipse even of the prospect of fidelity to an ecclesial tradition.
He was, moreover, convinced of the need to give tradition, as Gadamer argued, the benefit of the doubt.
However, I would like to suggest that there is a deeper dimension to all this, namely the freedom to have a theological voice ready to say thank you.
This is not to say that this insight is original to Ratzinger/Benedict, or that he would claim it as such, although he embodies it in a particularly public way.
He shares this thought with de Lubac and Balthasar, and it is a defining feature of Communio in general.
As a theologian, cardinal, and then pope, he wanted to share it with the world, continually saying thank you for what he and every Christian have received as gifts: for example, Scripture, the creed, the liturgy, the catechisms, theologians, martyrs, and saints, and of course the Church which is constituted by these gifts and serves as the locus of their distribution.
Perhaps we should also add the gifts of beauty, which have taken on increasing importance for Ratzinger/Benedict, such as the enchanting beauty of nature (the Black Forest) and that which is revealed in works of art, be it Mozart, Dante, or Michelangelo. They are at the same time distinctive signatures of truth and goodness.
Even more, Ratzinger/Benedict wanted to share the insight that all the things mentioned above are forms of thanksgiving to the God who loved the world so much that he sent his Son, who is the inviolable object of our prayer and praise, making both possible.
It is by living in this environment of gratitude that gratitude is born and deepens in us, becoming so habitual that we can say thanks even in solitude, suffering and weakness.
Of course, becoming expert in gratitude means approaching the condition of being prayer ourselves: this is the sign of the saint. In the meantime, there is an infinite number of pearls in the necklace of thanksgiving that are prayers, private and public, informal and formal. Every prayer, even that of request, as Balthasar taught us, tends to become thanksgiving, because no prayer is such if it does not contain the “Thy will be done”.
About prayer, one could say that every act of it contains a learning and a potential for growth. The obstacles are many, but, fortunately, there is the Holy Spirit who is the great facilitator and liberator. It is not difficult to see that for Ratzinger/Benedict this is the meaning of his life and the sign of his Christian vocation.
I have emphasized on several occasions that Ratzinger/Benedict is from beginning to end and in every respect an Augustinian theologian. He is so not only because of his studies of Augustine and the Augustinian tradition (especially St. Bonaventure), because of his numerous references to De Trinitate, De civitate Dei, and Ennarationes in psalmos, but also because his positions on Scripture, the Creed, eschatology and protology, the nature of history and the eschaton, and Christ and the Holy Spirit have an unmistakable Augustinian flavor.
But what I want to emphasize here is something different: an attitude that highlights the common thread that ties the memory of Augustine and his non-identical repetition, capable of speaking to what is alive and dead in the modern secular age. I like to think that Benedict, just as he wants us to be assimilated and formed by Scripture as the Word of God, would also like us to see ourselves inscribed in the pages of a text full of desire and fulfillment in which we find God because God has already found us in Christ.
That text, of course, is the Confessions. Despite Augustine’s powerful descriptive gifts and his ability to make his sins of the flesh and errors of the intellect so vivid as challenges for us today, the condition of the possibility of writing about loss, conversion, repentance and praise is that the God who accompanied him on his journey found him.
What is crucial is openness to the God who is presented in Scripture, a God who is too much for the Manicheans because he is sovereign and too little for the Neoplatonists because he offered himself entirely in his Son who went to the “land of dissimilarity” for our sake.
This God also made prayer possible and therefore the gratitude that it brings and sustains. From the first book of the Confessions, Augustine gives thanks to God through the language of the Psalms, which expresses all that he has to say in the form of thanksgiving. The Confessions is a text not only of multiple expressions of gratitude, but about becoming gratitude, about being assimilated to the Grace – the greatest that can be conceived – as a member of the body of Christ.
I dare say that no other text in the theological tradition captures so vividly and synthetically the disposition that impels us toward what is the foundation of Christian life. Just as Ratzinger/Benedict reads himself and us in the biblical text, he also reads himself and us in another text that disowns the author and gives him his true name and his vocation, which is everywhere and in all circumstances to say thanks in a dynamic movement toward becoming what is said.
If what makes sense of my being a theologian has continually called me to this disposition in my forty years of teaching and research, it has been Augustine and Ratzinger/Benedict — with a little help from de Lubac and Balthasar — who have reminded me of this somewhat elusive goal. This disposition is at work in my analyses of thinkers like Newman, de Lubac, Balthasar, and Przywara, and, of course, Ratzinger/Benedict, all of whom share an excellent capacity to express it. It has also played a role in my genealogy of modernity as a “gnostic return,” in my critique of German Idealism and Romanticism as well as the Enlightenment and its reductive view of reason, in my resistance to Heidegger and his postmodern followers, whose dizzying speculations are designed to make thanks superfluous or anachronistic. What animates the criticism of modern and postmodern forms of thought, which can only superficially be approached to Catholicism, is ultimately the profound experience of having already been seized by a Thank You that is Christ, pronounced in the Church and made alive in the Spirit. Whatever intellectual excellence I may be recognized for is inscribed in this Thank You that brought me to Rome and gave me this day to express gratitude, reminding me how far I am from its perfect expression.
Cyril O’Regan
Huisking Professor of Theology
University of Notre Dame
Facebook Comments