John Templeton Foundation is an institution created to develop programs in the field of religion and society. Their annual prize for religious writing has been offered this year to Antonio Marujo.

António Marujo, religion writer with "Público", a popular daily newspaper
published in Lisbon, Portugal, has been named as the winner of the 2005 John Templeton award for the "European Religion Writer of the Year".

The announcement of the award, which is valued at 5,000 Swiss Francs, was
made today in Geneva, Switzerland, by the Office of Communication of the
Conference of European Churches (CEC), which administers the award on behalf of the USA based "John Templeton Foundation".

The aim of the award is to honour journalists who write about religion in the secular press with accuracy, impartiality and an ecumenical spirit. The prize was inaugurated in 1994, and had already been won by Mr Marujo in 1995. This is the first time the prize has been awarded to someone who was a
previous recipient.

Born in 1961, António Marujo studied social communications at the University
of Lisbon. Before working for Público he wrote for the weekly "Expresso" and
the daily "Diario de Lisboa". He recently published a book on the first  year of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI ("Um Papa (In)esperado", editora Paulus).

Mr Marujo's entry for the Templeton prize included a news story titled "Bono
Vox, drinker of wine and reader of the Bible" (on an exhibition in Lisbon on
the relevance of the Bible), a feature story on the Christian meaning of light , and an interview with José Tolentino Mendonça, a priest, poet and biblical scholar, titled "Jesus is a fascinating mystery, still unfinished".

"This is authentic religion writing, rather than church-related writing", said one of the judges, "and it is of the highest order. António Marujo is not fascinated by the Church but something much deeper, by the mystery of religion itself". "António Marujo makes his subjects come alive in a way that not every journalist can do", stated another judge.

The director of "Público", Mr José Manuel Fernandes, stated: "It's a reason
for pride, for Público, that one of its journalists, António Marujo, has been recognised for the second time with the Templeton prize for religion writing. We are proud of him and we are proud because we keep creating the conditions to provide our readers with high quality stories such as Mr Marujo's entry".

"Público" was founded in 1990 and has a circulation of 72,000 copies. It was
the first Portuguese mainstream newspaper to have an online edition.

The prize will be presented on July 6 in Lisbon (time and venue to be
announced later).

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