US-based John Templeton Foundation Thursday announced former apartheid activist and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as the winner of the 2013 Templeton Prize, which is valued at $1.7 million.
The Foundation said the award is for Tutu’s life-long work in advancing spiritual principles such as love and forgiveness which has helped to liberate people around the world.
The prize, for the past 40 years, has been the world’s biggest yearly monetary prize which honors living persons who have made brilliant impact in confirming spiritual realities.
“By embracing such universal concepts of the image of God within each person, Desmond Tutu also demonstrates how the innate humanity within each of us is intrinsically tied to the humanity between all peoples,” Dr John M. Templeton jnr, president and chairman of the Foundation, said in a video statement this morning.
He said Tutu managed to call upon all of humanity to see that each and every human being is “unique in all of history.”
“And…to embrace our own vast potential to be agents for spiritual progress and positive change, and not only does he teach this idea, he lives it,” he said.
Tutu said: “When you are in a crowd and you stand out from the crowd, it’s usually because you are being carried on the shoulders of others.”
Tutu climbed to global fame with his resolute and fruitful challenge to South Africa’s apartheid system from the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Since then he has always merged the theological concept that all human beings are shaped in the image of God with the traditional African belief of Ubuntu.
Tutu’s calls to common humanity began in the 1970s, when he used ranks within the church to focus international spotlight on the brutal apartheid policies of South Africa’s ruling minority junta.
Soon after South Africa’ first all-race elections in 1994, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) employing a revolutionary and relentless policy of confession.
The US-based Foundation said a celebration will be held next week Thursday, April 11 in Cape Town’s St. George’s Cathedral.
Tutu will receive the prize this year at a public ceremony at the Guildhall in London on Tuesday, May 21.
