Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 8 September 1942. He was ordained a priest on 7 December 1968 in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires. At the St. Thomas Aquinas University of Rome he was awarded a Ph.D in sacred theology – the highest level of Church postgraduate studies – with the maximum possible grade of summa cum laude (1974). He also gained an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the University of Perugia, obtaining the highest possible marks (1976). From 1976 to 1998 he was lecturer in the history of philosophy at the Lateran University in Rome where from 1982 onwards he was full professor in the same discipline. He was dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the same university for three consecutive terms from 1987 to 1996. Since 1998 he has been full professor of the history of philosophy at the Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta (Rome) and in the same year was appointed president of the degree course in education science. In November 1998 he was appointed Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences by Pope John Paul II. In March 1999 His Holiness also appointed him Secretary Prelate of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. On 6 March 2000 he was appointed Cavaliere di Gran Croce by the President of the Italian Republic; on 15 February 2001, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart assigned him the Francesco Vito Prize; on 3 April 2002 the President of the French Republic conferred him the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur; on 12 July 2004 he received the Neruda Award by the Chilean Ambassador to the Holy See. On 25 August 2004 he received the Decoration Grão Mestre da Ordem de Rio Branco by the Brazilian Embassy to the Holy See.