Meeting with former students on “the new evangelization”
Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz.
The traditional summer meeting of Benedict XVI with the “Ratzinger Schülerkreis”—the circle of former theology students of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—will turn this year to the topic of the new evangelization, according to a June 14 announcement by Fr. Stephan Horn, an emeritus professor of fundamental theology (Passau) and the spokesman of the circle. The meeting will take place in Castel Gandolfo, the pope’s summer residence, from August 26-28, 2011.
The participants are former students who wrote their doctoral thesis in theology with Professor Joseph Ratzinger and who periodically met together when he was Archbishop of Munich and then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Two guest speakers have been invited to participate this year: the originally East German philosopher Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, author of a book on Romano Guardini, and a gentleman from Vienna, Otto Neubauer, a member of the Emmanuel Community and a specialist in evangelization.
Fr. Stephan Horn, who organizes these meetings between the pope and his former theology students, is also director of the J. Ratzinger Center, which was created to facilitate the study of the theology of Pope Benedict XVI. The Center, located in Rome on the Via Nomentana, presently has one instructor on its staff, Fr. Bruno Gautier, a priest of the Diocese of Pamiers (France). Starting in October 2011 with the Fall semester, the Center will offer a year of study designed as an “integrated formation” in which theology and spirituality are taught on the basis of Sacred Scripture, patristic writings, and the liturgy. (Sources: apic/imedia/centro-j-ratzinger – DICI no. 237 dated June 25, 2011)
