ONE OF Ireland's best-known Catholic theologians has been appointed a trustee of a new foundation which has been established to promote the theology of Pope Benedict XVI.
Fr Vincent Twomey, professor emeritus of moral theology at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, is one of a number of former pupils of the Pope - from Germany, Portugal, Benin, the US as well as Ireland - who make up the board of trustees of the the newly-established Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI Foundation. It will be launched in Munich on November 12th next.
Final details of the new foundation were approved at plenary sessions held recently at the Pope's summer residence at Castel Galdolfo, under the chairmanship of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna.
They took place as Pope Benedict held an annual meeting with his former doctoral and post-doctoral students there, which took place from August 28th to September 1st last.
This was the 30th meeting since the circle was set up after the then Prof Joseph Ratzinger was made cardinal archbishop of Munich in 1977. Forty of his former students from all over the world were present.
Two Lutheran scriptural scholars, Martin Hengel and Peter Stuhlmacher, were invited to read papers in the presence of the Pope on the general topic of the historical authenticity of the Gospel narratives and on the particular topic of Jesus's consciousness of the significance of his own pending death.
Pope Benedict, who is in the process of writing the second volume of his book Jesus of Nazareth, took an active part in the exchange of views that followed.
Seventeen younger theologians also presented their research projects to the gathering at two sessions, on Sunday, August 31st, and Monday, September 1st.
