Pope Leo XIV appointed Vera Songwe, a former United Nations Undesecretary General and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
Established by Pope St. John Paul II in 1994, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences has the “aim of promoting the study and progress of the social sciences, primarily economics, sociology, law and political science,” according to its statutes. “The Academy, through an appropriate dialogue, thus offers the Church the elements which she can use in the development of her social doctrine, and reflects on the application of that doctrine in contemporary society.”
Members, according to the statutes, are chosen “on the basis of their competencies in the social sciences and of their moral integrity”; they need not be Catholic.