Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches 9 Cardinal Martini, a doctor in theology and Holy Scripture, has been a lecturer at the Biblical Institute of Rome, rector of the Gregorian University —named by His Holiness Pope John Paul II— and president of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe. However, as is the case with the other Laureates, merely providing a long list of his merits does not show us the true nature of his virtues. For in Cardinal Martini there is also a very special ethical magnitude which goes far beyond any formal recognition he has received. Cardinal Martini, a priest in the large diocese of Milan, has made his cathedral a temple for the divine word, for prayer and for fraternity. His open-minded, understanding attitude is synthesised in a profound wish to meet, as he himself has said, “all those who wonder about the mystery of human existence”. We should seek the secret of his teaching, which has been honed by hours of spiritual retirement and solitude, in his faith in words and his conviction of the need for permanent dialogue. He is the author of today’s most widely read Biblical commentaries; his stimulating, modern interpretation of the Holy Scriptures beckon us to a long-awaited encounter with the quiet, peaceful life of piety and dignity that the scriptures promise us. Cardinal Martini cares for the dispossessed, the elderly, immigrants, the persecuted, grass-root communities and prisoners. He talks to people from other religions and to agnostics to explore the opportunities of establishing joint action in favour of a more human world. He has done this, with brilliance and exemplary understanding, on the question of the basis of ethics, with Umberto Eco. From different stances, the two of them have come close together in their aims, in their desire to reach moral perfection and find answers to questions raised by the modern world. Without losing sight of the fact that the ultimate aim of human life is, as he has said, “obedience to amystery that is greater than us”, the ability to explain man’s greatest contradictions knowledgeably and with kindness shines forth in the attitude and beliefs of Cardinal Martini. Our Awards once again return to Spanish America, as the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature has been conferred on Augusto Monterroso, one of the authors who has most endeavoured, from the other side of the Atlantic, to find new paths to literary creation. The history of Spanish literature has been written thanks largely to the endeavours of a broad group of Spanish–American writers. Amongst other reasons, this is because they succeeded in enriching their language with peculiarities from their countries of origin and with the best Castilian tradition to form something new and original with a strength of expression that identifies them uniquely. This originality is represented here today in the person of Augusto Monterroso, a writer who is Honduran by birth and Guatemalan at heart, or more precisely in his masterly short story writing. By conferring the Award on Augusto Monterroso, one is also doing so on the short story as a genre of which he is one of the most illustrious representatives in the Spanish language. Reality and fantasy, satire and humour, precision and witticism are the main characteristics of his work. The “Cervantine, melancholic originality” of his style, which the Jury referred to when conferring the Award, may stem from his being self-taught and from his constant need to learn. Finally, we might say in his honour that it is impossible to overlook his passionate, pacific resistance in favour of democracy for his country; this has meant an exile that has lasted fifty-two years and has closely linked him to Mexican culture. The soprano Barbara Hendricks, who has been granted the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts, rightly believes that music is for the world as a whole and that she sings for the world as a whole. Gifted with excellent faculties, with a special emotive quality to her voice and an international presence of twenty-five years standing, Barbara Hendricks knows our country well, she admires its history and several of our best singers have been her maestros. It should be emphasised that her life is not only guided by a love of music, but also by “There is always room for meeting and mutual understanding amongst those who place the supreme value of life itself above fanatiscism and crime.”