Pretoria, 04 August, 2021 / 8:15 pm (ACI Africa).
A South African Professor of Anthropology has been appointed as an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
Pope Francis appointed Professor Mpilenhe Pearl Sithole to the Vatican-based institution created to promote the study and progress of social sciences Tuesday, August 4.
The Academy that was established in January 1994 by St. John Paul II aims at promoting the academic fields of “economics, sociology, law and political science, thus offering the Church those elements, which she can use for the development of her social doctrine, and reflecting on the application of that doctrine in contemporary society,” the entity’s leadership has documented.
Prof. Sithole is the Vice Principal and Head of Academic and Research at the University of the Free State Qwaqwa Campus in Phuthaditjhaba, South Africa.
The 48-year-old academic is a trained social anthropologist with interest in governance, gender and development, politics of knowledge production, and social inequality, says the leadership of the Pontifical Academy.