Pope Benedict XVI - Honours and Awards

Honours and Awards

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Italian Wikipedia.

Pope Benedict is Grand Master of the following Orders: Supreme Order of Christ, Order of the Golden Spur, Order of Pius IX, Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great and the Order of St. Sylvester.

1977 Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit of the Republic of Ecuador

1977 Knight Grand Cross of the Bavarian Order of Merit

1985 Grand Merit Cross with Star and Sash of the Federal Republic of Germany

1985 Constitutional Medal of the Bavarian State Parliament in Gold

1989 Ordine della Minerva at the University of Chieti

1989 Augustin Bea Prize (Rome)

1989 Karl-Valentin-Orden (Munich)

1991 Leopold Kunschak Prize (Vienna)

1991 Georg von Hertling Medal of Kartellverband katholischer deutscher Studentenvereine

1992 Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria

1992 Literature Prize Capri S. Michele in Anacapri

1992 Premio Internazionale di Cultura Cattolica, Bassano del Grappa

1993 literary prize Premio Letterario Basilicata per la Letteratura e Poesia religiosa Spirituale in Potenza (Italy)

1996 Knight of the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art

1998 Commander of the Legion of Honour (Legion d'Honneur) (France)

1999 Bailiff Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

2002 Liberal Trieste

2004 Literature Prize Capri S. Michele in Anacapri

Honorary doctorates

1984 College of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota, USA; Honorary Doctor of Human Letters)

1986 Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru)

1987 Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

1988 Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski (Catholic University of Lublin, Poland)

1998 University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain)

1999 Libera Università Maria SS Assunta Roma (Maria SS Assunta Free University, Rome) (honorary degree in law)

2000 Uniwersytet Wrocławski (University of Wroclaw, Poland; Honorary Doctor of Theology)

2005 Universatea Babes-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca (Babeș-Bolyai University)

Honorary citizenships

1987 Pentling, near Regensburg, location of his main German residence

1997 Marktl, his birthplace

2005 Traunstein, location of the school and the study seminar he attended

2006 Altötting

2006 Regensburg, worked as a full, later as a visiting, professor

2006 Aschau am Inn, started school and received Mass for the first time

2007 Tittmoning, where he spent part of his childhood.

2008 Bressanone, where he holidayed several times as a Cardinal and as Pope

2009 Mariazell, whose sanctuary he visited in 2007 as Pope

2009 Introd in the Aosta Valley, where he spent some of his summer holidays in 2005, 2006 and 2009

2010 Freising, where he studied, was ordained a priest in 1951, where he served from 1954–1957 lecturer at the Philosophical and Theological College and worked from 1977 to 1982 as archbishop of Munich and Freising

2011 Natz-Schabs in South Tyrol; Benedict's grandmother Maria Tauber Peintner and his great-grandmother Elisabeth Maria Tauber both come from Natz-Schabs

The asteroid 8661 Ratzinger was dedicated to him, on the grounds of making accessible the Vatican archives and thus allow the historians to investigate miscarriages of justice against Galileo and other scientists in the Middle Ages.

Pope Benedict is an honorary citizen of Arconate, Romano Canavese