Cyril O’Regan, the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, has been selected to receive the 2024 Ratzinger Prize in Theology, widely regarded as the most prestigious award in the field.

Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, will present the award to O’Regan and to sculptor Etsurō Sotoo during a ceremony at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City on Nov. 22. Both winners will also have an audience with Pope Francis earlier that day.

“I am delighted and also feel incredibly honored given the caliber of scholars and thinkers who have received it before me,” O’Regan said of the recognition.

O’Regan is the second theologian from Notre Dame to receive the Ratzinger Prize. Rev. Brian E. Daley, S.J., the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology emeritus received the award in 2012 from Pope Benedict XVI.

Nicknamed the “Nobel of Theology,” the Ratzinger Prize was established in 2010 and is the principal initiative of The Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) Vatican Foundation. It is awarded to “scholars who have distinguished themselves with particular merit in the activity of publication and/or scientific research.” In recent years, the scope has also expanded to include awardees who practice the arts with Christian inspiration.

In announcing the award, the Vatican recognized O’Regan for both his attentive teaching and research, noting that he “has devoted several important articles to the figure and teaching of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI.” O’Regan spoke of Benedict XVI’s legacy in April at a conference co-hosted by Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) Vatican Foundation.

O’Regan is an internationally recognized scholar in systematic theology, the history of Christianity and, particularly, the intersection of theology and continental philosophy in the modern period. He has written numerous articles and books, including “The Heterodox Hegel,” “Gnostic Return in Modernity,” “Theology and the Spaces of Apocalyptic,” “The Anatomy of Misremembering: Balthasar’s Response to Philosophical Modernity” and a forthcoming work titled “Newman and Ratzinger.”

Born in Ireland, O’Regan earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from University College Dublin. He then completed a doctoral degree in theology at Yale University and served as a professor of religious studies at the university. O’Regan joined Notre Dame’s Department of Theology in 1999, where he has taught both undergraduate and graduate-level courses, been a part of nearly 150 dissertation committees and continued his research.

“The theology department has been able to integrate scholarship into the complex mission of educating our students in the Christian tradition, while being open to other faiths, and realizing the challenges and opportunities presented by the modern world,” he said. “ As a theologian, I could not imagine being anywhere else.”

Originally published by Carrie Gates and Mary Kinney at news.nd.edu on September 18, 2024.