Noorjeahan Majid awarded the 2016 Klaus Hemmerle Prize
Foto: Martin Felder
Foto: Ulrike Comes
Aachen – Klaus Hemmerle Award 2016
The reasons for the award is in recognition for the work of the physician, Dr Noorjehan Abdul Majid, and the work of the Sant’Egidio community, in the fight against AIDS. Dr Abdul Majid’s ability as a Muslim woman to build exceptional bridges between Christians and Muslims, demonstrate that through the promotion of a peaceful co-existence it’s possible for there to be effective collaboration between Christians and Muslims. Among those who will be present at the ceremony are Annette Schavan, the German ambassador to the Holy See, who will deliver the oration. The award is in memory of the person and spiritual heritage of Catholic bishop of Aachen, Klaus Hemmerle (1929 – 1994). The Focolare Movement gives these awards to outstanding “bridge builders” of dialogue between churches, religions and visions of the world. The prize is awarded every two years. See also: www.fokolar-bewegung.de Sant’Egidio’s DREAM public health project
6th Klaus Hemmerle Award goes to Ruth Pfau
Ruth Pfau is a medical doctor who generously devoted her efforts and service to Pakistan, working for peace in a way that has reached far beyond feild of health assistance. Evangelical Bishop Christian Krause called her a Christian woman who has “overcome the abysses between men and women in a society dominated by men; between rich and poor, between tradition and modernity, between foreign cultures.” She is a religious sister who has brought the experience of Christ’s love to people of all backgrounds and religious convictions,” said President of the Pakistan Bishops Conference, Archbishop Joseph Coutts, as he thanked her in name of the Pakistani Church. With the help of the German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association (DAHW) Ruth Pfau has built a hospital in the city of Karachi. Because of her work in the management of leprosy and tuberculosis she was appointed Secretary of State by the Pakistan government. For more than twenty years she has been working in collaboration with the Christoffel Mission offering assistance to the blind, and gaining the esteem of a nearly entirely Muslim society. Appreciation for this woman who was born in 1929 was also expressed by the Bishop of Aquisgrana, Heinrich Mussinghoffe and by Focolare president Maria Voce, who called her a “witness of God’s love and builder of a more just and fraternal society.” Every two years this award is conferred by the Focolare Movement in honour of the spiritual patrimony of Hemmerle. What does Ruth Pfau have in common with the theologian Klaus Hemmerle who was once bishop of Aquisgrana and a contemporary of Ruth? Television journalist and theology professor Michael Albus answers this question in the keynote address he gave at the Dome Church of Aachen (Aquisrana) where the award ceremony was held on May 8th. 
“She had the courage to dare to take the plunge, to decide to help without hesitation, wherever there was need: without theoretical, political or even theological justification. And without asking – as happens in our capitalistic world – how she would be repaid.” This is what these two people have in common, along with their desire to build “a Church that salvages God in the world, from dying of cold,” as St Martin reminds us. Then Ruth spoke: “We can help one another to be better people and full of humanity,” she stated. For her, one sign of this humanity is “wasting time.” She was taught that lesson during her time in Asia. You very rarely find it in a hospital or house for the elderly in Germany. For her, this signals a loss of humanity. She was pleased to accept the award because it gave honour to this “wasting time”, although the motivation for the award highlighted her ability to “build bridges and create unity through her radical devotion to the poor, based on her faith which she lived with strength and conviction in an environment charged with conflict.”
1994-2014: Remembering Klaus Hemmerle
Chiara Lubich and Bishop Klaus Hemmerle. Synod of the Laity, 1987.
‘Klaus Hemmerle is timeless, because it is was not so much he who lived, but Jesus lived in him. So I see him today as I was him while was still among us. I see him as another Jesus, but with all the qualities that stood out in his personality, ranging from the astuteness of the just to the wisdom of the elect, and ranging from a fatherlike and yet brotherly commitment, given with tremendous resolve to the portion of the People of God entrusted to him, to his freedom in following a charism from the Holy Spirit and his characteristic gift as an artist. That’s what he was like.’
Asked about her own relationship with the Bishop Hemmerle, Chiara Lubich described him as ‘a person called by God to found, together with [me as] its [overall] founder, a specific part of a Work of God. Hence it is a unique relationship known only to those who were in it, a relationship of the purest friendship, full of the charity of Christ.’ Indeed, Chiara called him a ‘co-founder’, and said, ‘He helped me to bring in being two important things within the Focolare Movement: the branch of the Bishop Friends of the Movement, who share in the spirituality of unity, and the founding of the Abba School that translates the spirituality of unity, the fruit of a charism, into intellectual thought.
‘He had many gifts and they shone out from him. When you think of him, even while he is clothed in the dignity of a priest and a bishop, it is easier to see him as an angel than as a man, because of his sublime delicacy of mind, his freedom of spirit, his deep and enlightened intelligence, his constancy of temperament, his fervour, without exaggeration, when it was necessary to defend someone, and his firmness. I and we saw him as an example because of his complete detachment from himself and from all he was involved with. Only after his death, for instance, did I learn of his musical and artistic talents.
‘He was an example in his constant attention to love for every brother or sister he came across as well as for everything that, for him, represented God’s will.
‘And an example in his passionate attachment to the Word of God such that he lived it, for instance, for five years, one Word at a time for a month in depth, in preparation for the Abba School. He had heard of the experience of doing this at the beginning of the Movement before the Spirit gave us some particular intuitions, things that proved to be of immense value for studying the charism.’
A group of Bishop Friends ot the Focolare.
And with regard to being a bishop? Chiara Luibich recalled, ‘He once confided in me that, so far as he was concerned personally, he would have preferred to have been a theologian but, I think, becoming a bishop certainly made him useful to the Church, as indeed he was to the Focolare Movement, since to his immense learning he added the authority of the Church’s Teaching Office, and in this way he provided us with some important guarantees.’
From Wilfried Hagemann, Klaus Hemmerle, innamorato della Parola di Dio [Klaus Hemmerle, a Man in Love with the Word of God] (Rome: Città Nuova, 2013) pp. 288-89.
Klaus Hemmerle Award: Bridges for the good of the entire human family
On 26th January, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Cardinal Michael Czerny, went to Aachen, Germany, to receive the 2024 Klaus Hemmerle Prize. Since 2004, the Focolare Movement has presented the Klaus Hemmerle Award every two years, to people who, like the former Bishop of Aachen, have actively contributed to building bridges in the Church and in society. The 11th Award ceremony was held on Friday, 26th January, 2024, in the Cathedral of Aachen (Germany). This year, which marked the 30th anniversary of the death of Klaus Hemmerle (1929-1994), the recipient was Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. 
Prof. Dr. Johannes Wallacher, Rector of the University of Philosophy in Munich, presented the award. In his speech, he underlined Card. Czerny’s contributions to theological development and his dedication to implementing the Social Doctrine of the Church in socio-political contexts throughout various phases of his life. Wallacher also spoke of the “vision of global fraternity as a sign of the times and a central key to finding answers to the needs of our times”, a vision to which Czerny is committed and is an inspiring model. 
In its decision, the jury emphasized Card. Czerny’s tireless advocacy for human dignity and rights, his call to “accept differences and to learn from other cultures” in order to foster “a more just world”, a commitment praised by the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany, His Excellency Msgr. Nikola Eterović. Mons Helmut Dieser, the current Bishop of Aachen said, “The fraternity of all people is the guiding theme of Pope Francis” and he referred to Cardinal Czerny as, “a supporter and a pioneer of this theme”. Margaret Karram, President of the Focolare Movement, sent a message to congratulate Card. Czerny in which she highlighted his significant efforts in building a culture of unity and dialogue, recognizing him as an ally in the effort to mediate conflicts and to promote mutual solidarity. In his speech of acceptance, Cardinal Czerny focused on the social magisterium of Pope Francis for a socio-ecological transformation. He referred to key texts of the Doctrine, which he considers cutting-edge today and he agreed with the Pope, who in his encyclical “All Brothers”, called for a culture of encounter to replace the “throwaway culture”. Czerny said, “We must shift our attention from profit to prosperity, from economic growth to sustainability and from materiality to human dignity” and he stressed the importance of “rethinking the concept of progress and of restoring a sense of community”, a path that leads from the “I” to the “we”. In conclusion, he thanked those present for their “crucial role in shaping new rationales that can protect our fragile environment and empower our fragmented communities.” He said that receiving this award was an encouragement for him to “continue to focus all the existing forces of good in the sense of a holistic development, for the service and benefit of the entire human family”.
Andrea Fleming Photo di Martin Felder