Lady Archer to Lead Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

A news item for those who would claim that the Catholic Church doesn’t take full advantage of the talents of women:

This morning in Vatican City, Pope Francis appointed Lady Margaret Archer as president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.  Lady Archer replaces outgoing president Mary Ann Glendon, professor of law at Harvard Law School.

Lady Archer, a professor at l’Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, is considered one of the most influential theorists in the critical realist tradition.  A founding member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, Archer also served as the first woman President of the International Sociological Association.   She is a trustee at the Centre for Critical Realism.

She has written many books in the field of sociology, including Making our Way through the World and Transcendence: Critical Realism and God.

Archer was Professor of Sociology for many years at the  University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.  Before that, she was a lecturer at the University of Reading.