2008 Templeton Award goes to Polish Priest

A Polish priest has been declared the winner of the 2008 Templeton Prize, an award that is considered the most cash-rich annual academic prize in the world. Rev. Michael Heller is not only a priest, but also a mathematician, scientist, and author, besides being a good friend of the late Pope John Paul II.

The 72-year old Rev. Heller won the award for his work in the field of mathematics. His work includes mathematical formulae through which he is able to explain almost everything around us, even something as abstract as chance. The philosopher in him uses mathematics to make people question the reality of material existence around us.

The Templeton Foundation, the organization behind the prize for Progress towards Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, has been awarding the prize for the past 35 years. The prize money for the award is not fixed; each year it is adjusted to ensure it is more than the Nobel Prize that the Nobel Foundation gives away.

In a statement, the foundation said the research work Rev. Heller had undertaken had ‘pushed at the metaphysical horizons of science.’ Announcing the award, this was what John Templeton, son of Sir John Templeton and chair of the John Templeton Foundation, the organization that started the prize in 1973, had to say, “Michael Heller’s quest for deeper understanding has led to pioneering breakthroughs in religious concepts and knowledge as well as expanding the horizons of science.”

Rev. Heller is a professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology, located in Krakow, Poland. His work essentially is centered on finding a plausible theory of creation. During the course of his work, he has researched on a range of subjects, from Einstein and quantum mechanics to cosmology, physics, and also pure mathematics.

The Rector of Krakow’s Jagiellonian University, Professor Karol Musiol, nominated Rev. Heller for the award. Professor Musiol said, “His unique position as a creatively working scientist and reflective man of religion has brought to science a sense of transcendent mystery and to religion a view of the universe through the broadly open eyes of science.”

Professor Musiol went on to add, “He has introduced a significant notion of theology of science. He has succeeded in showing that religion isolating itself from scientific insights is lame, and science failing to acknowledge other ways of understanding is blind.”

Even though there was suppression of religion in Poland during a large period of Rev. Heller’s adult life, he persevered in his chosen field and emerged as a brilliant student who did research in a number of universities around the world, such as Liege and Oxford.

Rev. Heller was involved in work with the late Pope John Paul II when he was Krakow’s Archbishop. His brilliance in his work ensured he was one of the scientists and academicians who went each summer to the summer residence of the Pope, Castel Gandolfo.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, the philosopher has been one of the big scientific influences in the life of Rev. Heller. On hearing about the award, Rev. Heller said he would be giving the cash from the award to develop the Copernicus Center in Krakow, an academy that would focus on research in the realms of science and theology.