Inos Biffi to be awarded Premio Internazionale Tommaso d’Aquino

On March 9 the Circolo San Tommaso d’Aquino will award its Premio Internazionale Tommaso d’Aquino to Monsignor Inos Biffi, emeritus professor of the Facoltà di Teologia di Lugano and the Facoltà di Teologia di Italia Settentrionale and currently director of the Istituto di Storia della Teologia in Lugano. The announcement of the award was made by L’Osservatore Romano and by the Zenit news agency last week. You can find the Zenit article here.

Biffi was a friend and disciple of the French Dominican Marie-Dominique Chenu and, like Chenu, has done a great deal of work in the history of medieval thought, although he does not concern himself exclusively with this field. The Italian publisher Jaca Book is bringing out Biffi’s opera omnia. The latest title, appearing this year, is Biffi’s I misteri di Cristo in Tommaso d’Aquino.

The Circolo San Tommaso d’Aquino is a cultural association started by a group of young people in Aquino, Italy in 2009. According to its webiste, its purpose is to “promote a cultural project founded in Christian doctrine and open to the new languages of culture and art.”

The Premio Internazionale Tommaso d’Aquino is awarded to those who “distinguish themselves in the world of culture or art.”

Tommaso Di Ruzza, president of the Circolo, said that the group is “truly glad and honored to offer recognition to Inos Biffi, a theologian of international reputation, a profound researcher and interpreter of the thought of Thomas Aquinas, and capable of speaking to everyone in a clear and understandable language.”

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, and John Finnis of the University of Oxford are past recipients of the award.

The academic committee in charge of selecting recipients is composed of Roberto Almagno, Lluís Clavell, Francesco D’Agostino, Antonio Fazio, Micol Forti, Walter Senner, and Manlio Sodi. Aquinas scholars will probably know Clavell, who is the president of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas and a professor at Santa Croce in Rome, and Senner, who is president of the Istituto San Tommaso at the Angelicum in Rome.

I’d like to thank my friend Anthony Valle for pointing out this bit of news to me.