Fr. Bernardo Cervellera receives 2012 "Vittorino Colombo" International Prize
The ceremony will take place on October 14 in the town of Albiate. The international award is given to individuals who contribute to promoting a politics of solidarity and cooperation between peoples. The statesman Vittorino Colombo, one of the most noble of the Catholic political world of the last century, a weaver of international relations with China.

Rome (AsiaNews) - Sunday, October 14 AsiaNews editor Fr. Bernardo Cervellera will receive the 2012 Vittorino Colombo international award. The prize was awarded by a jury headed by Prof. Angelo Caloia, president of the Vittorino Colombo Foundation. The ceremony will take place in Villa Campello, the town hall of Albiate (Monza-Brianza), the birthplace of Vittorino Colombo.

The International Vittorino Colombo Award was established in 1997 to commemorate the figure of the late statesman (1925-1996), several times minister in Italy in the last century, a noble figure, deeply committed to his Catholic faith and Italian political life and appreciated weaver of international relations, especially with China and in the Council of Europe.

The prize is awarded annually to an international personality who has contributed to the study and dissemination of the true values ​​of political solidarity and cooperation between peoples.

Past winners include: Card. Casaroli, Vatican Secretary of State, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, UN Secretary General, Jerzy Buzek, Prime Minister of Poland, Mikulas Dzurida, Prime Minister of Slovakia; Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, President of the Committee for the Jubilee; Patricio Aylwin Azocar , President of Chile, Sen. Emilio Colombo, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State, Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic Ivo Sander, Prime Minister of Croatia, Shirin Ebadi, Iranian intellectual, Hans-Gert Poettering, President of the Parliament the European Union; Placido Domingo, tenor and conductor; Sister Elvira Petrozzi, founder of the Cenacolo Community, Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio.