Desmond Tutu wins Templeton Prize

Broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 14 Apr 2013

Each year the prestigious Templeton Prize is awarded to a person who has made “an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.”

This year’s winner is South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Archbishop of Cape Town, who consistently called for justice and racial equality during some of the darkest and most oppressive years of apartheid in South Africa.

Archbishop Tutu won the Templeton Prize for his  lifelong work in “advancing spiritual principles such as love and forgiveness which has helped to liberate people around the world … His deep faith and commitment to prayer and worship provides the foundation for his message of love and forgiveness,” the Templeton Foundation said.

Archbishop Tutu was awarded the prize at a special ceremony on Thursday at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, where he served from 1986 to 1996.

Past winners of the Templeton Prize include Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Billy Graham, Chuck Colson, Paul Davies, John Polkinghorne, and the current Dalai Lama.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.