Vatican City, Sep 26, 2017 / 12:58 pm
The Vatican's Joseph Ratzinger Foundation unveiled a new prize called "Expanding Reason," aimed at promoting dialogue between the sciences and philosophy and theology in scholarly work.
Four Americans – Darcia Narvaez from the University of Notre Dame and Michael Schuck, Nancy C. Tuchman, and Jesuit Fr. Michael J. Garanzini from Loyola University – are among this year's winners.
"Expanding Reason," the name of the prize, "is a central idea in the teaching and in the work of Joseph Ratzinger (who would become Pope Benedict XVI) because he's a man of intelligence, he's a man of reason, of the search for truth," Fr. Federico Lombardi, former director of the Holy See Press Office, told EWTN Sept. 26.
President of the Ratzinger Foundation, Fr. Lombardi said the idea for the prize came about as a way to encourage work in the direction of dialogue between science and philosophy, and science and theology – "in research and also in the organization of courses in the university."