Pope Leo XIV has appointed a Harvard University epidemiology professor and director of the Human Flourishing Program to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.<\/p>\n
Tyler J. VanderWeele, a Catholic, is also co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at Harvard University and a contributor to the Institute for Family Studies, which promotes traditional marriage and family structures.<\/p>\n
VanderWeele joins 35 other ordinary members \u2014 academics and professionals in the fields of law, political science, economics, and sociology \u2014 at the Vatican academy.<\/p>\n
VanderWeele told EWTN News he is grateful \u201cfor the opportunity to participate and contribute\u201d to the work of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.<\/p>\n
\u201cCatholic social teaching has powerfully shaped the way I think about my own work and about the pursuit of societal flourishing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The academic, who entered the Catholic Church in 2012, said: \u201cThe principles of the dignity of the human person, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity provide a powerful roadmap for our life together. We certainly need to retain what is distinctive about the Catholic faith, but we also need to find common ground with others, and these principles of Catholic social teaching can help us to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
VanderWeele holds degrees in mathematics, philosophy, theology, finance, and biostatistics from Harvard, the University of Oxford, and the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
The Catholic University of America awarded VanderWeele an honorary doctorate in 2020.<\/p>\n
VanderWeele described his work at the Human Flourishing Program as aiming \u201cto create a \u2018positive epidemiology,\u2019 wherein we study the distribution and determinants of well-being, and to expand the purview of public health to include the promotion of individual and societal flourishing,\u201d according to the website of the social sciences academy<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2015, the professor joined a group of scholars in filing an amicus brief in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, arguing that there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n VanderWeele has also written on the topic of preventing and healing child sexual abuse<\/a> in religious communities.<\/p>\n He spoke about Christianity\u2019s contribution to the notion of human flourishing at a talk for the Veritas Forum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2023.<\/p>\n