Helen Mary Josephine Alford (born 1 May 1964 in London, UK) is an economist and dean of social sciences at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy. [1] April 1, 2023, was appointed president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. [2]
She was born in London and graduated with a doctorate in engineering from the University of Cambridge. Alford taught at Cambridge after receiving her doctorate. She entered the order of Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena in 1994. [3] She studied two years theology courses at Blackfriars, Oxford, 1994-1996. From Oct 1996, studied for Licence in Sacred Liturgy at Sant'Anselmo, Rome and from Jan 1999, changed Licence programme to Morals at the Angelicum, Rome.
Alford teaches courses on economic ethics, the history of technology, labor politics, and Catholic social thought; most of her teaching since becoming a Dominican has been at the Angelicum, a university founded and administered by members of that order. Her first assignment there was in 1996; in 2009, she was named full professor. She was elected dean of the social sciences faculty in May 2001 and re-elected for three further terms. She later became vice-rector and then, once again, dean of social sciences in 2021. [4]
Her numerous publications address questions of social ethics, health equity, and the responsible distribution of wealth. [5]
She is member of Editorial Boards of various academic journals, including Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Finance and Commun Good,Transforming Business, OIKONOMIA: journal of ethics and social sciences, Dizionario della Dottrina Sociale della Chiesa: Le cose nuove del XXI secolo.
A selection of her publications follows:
The Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilian priest named Dominic de Guzmán. It was approved by Pope Honorius III via the papal bull Religiosam vitam on 22 December 1216. Members of the order, who are referred to as Dominicans, generally display the letters OP after their names, standing for Ordinis Praedicatorum, meaning 'of the Order of Preachers'. Membership in the order includes friars, nuns, active sisters, and lay or secular Dominicans. More recently, there has been a growing number of associates of the religious sisters who are unrelated to the tertiaries.
Jean-Baptiste Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, OP, often styled Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, was a French ecclesiastic, preacher, journalist, theologian and political activist. He re-established the Dominican Order in post-Revolutionary France. Lacordaire was reputed to be the greatest pulpit orator of the nineteenth century.
A pontifical university is an ecclesiastical university established or approved directly by the Holy See, composed of three main ecclesiastical faculties and at least one other faculty. These academic institutes deal specifically with Christian revelation and related disciplines, and the Church's mission of spreading the Gospel, as proclaimed in the apostolic constitution Sapientiachristiana. As of 2018, they are governed by the apostolic constitution Veritatis gaudium issued by Pope Francis on 8 December 2017.
Joseph Sadoc Alemany y Conill, O.P. was a Spanish Catholic clergyman, who served most of his career in California. He served as the first Bishop of Monterey (1850–53) and then as Archbishop of San Francisco (1853–84).
Tommaso Maria Zigliara, OP was a Corsican priest of the Catholic Church, a member of the Dominicans, a theologian, philosopher and a cardinal.
The Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (PUST), also known as the Angelicum in honor of its patron the Doctor Angelicus Thomas Aquinas, is a pontifical university located in the historic center of Rome, Italy. The Angelicum is administered by the Dominican Order and is the order's central locus of Thomist theology and philosophy.
The Dominican House of Studies is a Catholic institution in Washington, DC, housing both the Priory of the Immaculate Conception, a community of the Province of St. Joseph of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), and the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, an ecclesiastical faculty of theology.
Dominique Pire, O.P. was a Belgian Dominican friar whose work helping refugees in post-World War II Europe saw him receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1958. Pire delivered his Nobel lecture, entitled Brotherly Love: Foundation of Peace, in December 1958.
Paul-Pierre Philippe O.P. was a Cardinal and Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches in the Roman Catholic Church.
Mario Luigi Ciappi, O.P. was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as personal theologian to five popes from 1955 to 1989, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1977.
Robert Rivas O.P. is the Roman Catholic archbishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of Castries in St. Lucia.
Raimondo Spiazzi OP was an Italian Catholic theologian, advisor to Pius XII, and Mariologist with over 2,500 publications.
Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., was an American theologian and philosopher who had a major influence on 20th century Catholic theology and ethics in America through his writing, teaching, and consulting with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Author of 19 books, Ashley was a major exponent of the River Forest Thomism. Health Care Ethics, which he co-authored in 1975 and now in its fifth edition, continues to be a fundamental text in the field of Catholic Medical Ethics. Ashley taught at numerous institutions and was an active teacher, consultant, and author. He was a faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Physics, a physics research and educational organization reintegrating the foundational principles given directly through our senses into the heart of modern science, from 2003 till his death. He called the Institute for Advanced Physics "the first and only institution addressing this problem [the disintegration of secular and religious culture] at its core by integrating the proper philosophical depth into the heart of modern science."
Henry Vincent Pope, better known as Fr. Hugh Pope (1869–1946), was an English Dominican biblical scholar, Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the Pontificium Collegium Internationale Angelicum, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome.
An ecclesiastical university is a special type of higher education school recognised by the Canon law of the Catholic Church. It is one of two types of universities recognised, the other type being the Catholic university. Every single ecclesiastical university is a pontifical university, while only a few Catholic universities are pontifical.
Tracey Rowland is an Australian Roman Catholic theologian and professor at the University of Notre Dame Australia. She was appointed to Pope Francis' International Theological Commission in 2014 and in 2020 became the first Australian, and third woman, to be awarded the Ratzinger Prize for theology.
Aniceto Fernández Alonso OP was a Spanish Catholic priest and the Master of the Order of Preachers from 1962 to 1974.
Thomas Joseph White, O.P., is an American Roman Catholic priest and theologian. On September 14, 2021, he succeeded Michał Paluch, OP, as rector of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
Raffaella Petrini is an Italian religious sister of the congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist and a Roman Curia official.
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