On the occasion of the award ceremony of the Foundation dedicated to the Pope Emeritus, the Orthodox musician will perform the Pater Noster on Benedict XVI’s piano.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI received the composer Arvo Pärt and the other two winners of the 2017 Ratzinger Prize, the German Lutheran theologian Theodor Dieter and the German Catholic theologian and priest Karl-Heinz Menke, to whom Pope Francis will hand over the Prize along with Pärt, an Estonian and Orthodox composer.
A photograph released by the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI shows the Pope emeritus in the company of the three winners, whom he met this morning at the Monastery Mater Ecclesiae where he resides, accompanied by Father Federico Lombardi, the President of the Foundation. The three prize winners were able to have a conversation with the emeritus Pope during a very intense and serene meeting “, a note says.
Tomorrow, Pope Francis will present the Ratzinger Prize during a ceremony that will take place in the “Clementine Hall” of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, at 12:00 p. m., and broadcast live on television and streaming on the website of the Vatican Television Center. After the greeting of Father Lombardi, Cardinal Kurt Kock, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity and member of the Foundation’s scientific committee, will illustrate the profile of the three award-winning winners of this seventh edition, who will then receive the Prize from Pope Francis.
After the delivery, the Pope will pronounce his intervention, which will be followed by the musical performance of the Pater noster by the maestro Arvo Pärt, who will play on the piano belonged to Benedict XVI. Soloist voice, a singer of the “White Voices” of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia. The famous composer conceived this piece on the occasion of Benedict XVI’s 60th priesthood in 2011. During the ceremony, the Choir of the Sistine Pontifical Chapel, directed by maestro Massimo Palombella, will perform short musical interventions.
In revealing the names of the award-winning winners, in a press conference in the Vatican, Lombardi underlined the ecumenical value of an edition that rewards three representatives of the three, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox confessions, and also underlined that “Joseph Ratzinger Benedict XVI’s appreciation for the highly religious inspiration of Pärt’s musical art, have justified the awarding of the Prize even outside the strictly theological field” with a “widening of the scope of the award-winning’s activities, which also include the arts: in this case of music of profound religious inspiration”.
