Pope Francis has named Cardinal Peter Turkson the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Cardinal Turkson had resigned in December from his previous post, as prefect of the dicastery for Integral Human Development. Although no reason was given for his departure, an audit of the dicastery earlier in 2021, followed by the abrupt termination of two subordinates, gave rise to rumors of administrative problems.

As the chancellor of the Pontifical Academies, he will replace Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, who had given the institutions a strongly leftward political bias. He had welcomed population-control advocates to Vatican-sponsored conferences, while shutting out pro-lifers and climate-change skeptics, and had praised the Chinese government as the best available fulfillment of Catholic social teaching.