Chancellor, Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1942. He was ordained a priest in 1968 in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires. At the St. Thomas Aquinas University of Rome in 1974, he was awarded a Ph.D. in sacred theology – the highest level of Church postgraduate studies – with the maximum possible grade of summa cum laude. From 1976 to 1998, he was lecturer in the history of philosophy at the Lateran University in Rome where, from 1982 onward, he was full professor in the same discipline. He was dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the same university for three consecutive terms from 1987 to 1996. Since 1998, he has been full professor of the history of philosophy at the Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta in Rome. In the same year, he was appointed president of the degree course in education science. In November 1998, he was appointed Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences by Pope John Paul II. In March 1999, His Holiness also appointed him secretary prelate of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. On March 19, 2001, His Holiness John Paul II consecrated him titular Bishop of Vescovìo. He also was decorated as Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Italian Republic in 1999, official of honor of the Légion d’Honneur by the Republic of France in 2000, Grão Mestre da Ordem de Rio Branco by the Republic of Brazil in 2004, Official of the Republic of Austria in 2004, Knight of the Republic of Chile in 2006, Member of the Accademia dei Gergo fili (2008), Member of the Accademia Italiana del Vino (2010) and Corresponding Member of the Academia de Ciencias de Cuba (2011).