NCBC Senior Fellow

Joseph Meaney, PhD, KM

Joseph Meaney received his PhD in bioethics from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. His doctoral program was founded by the late Elio Cardinal Sgreccia and linked to the medical school and Gemelli teaching hospital. His dissertation topic was Conscience and Health Care: A Bioethical Analysis. Dr. Meaney earned his master’s in Latin American studies, focusing on health care in Guatemala, from the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from the University of Dallas with a BA in history and a concentration in international studies. The Benedict XVI Catholic University in Trujillo, Peru, awarded Dr. Meaney an honorary visiting professorship. The University of Dallas bestowed on him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters in 2022.

Dr. Meaney was director of international outreach and expansion for Human Life International (HLI) and is a leading expert on the international pro-life and family movement, having traveled to eighty-one countries on pro-life missions over the last twenty-five years. He founded the Rome office of HLI in 1998 and lived in Rome for nine years, where he collaborated closely with dicasteries of the Holy See, particularly the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Academy for Life. He is a dual US and French citizen and is fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, and English. His family has been active in the health care and pro-life fields in Corpus Christi, Texas, and in France for many years.

Dr. Meaney was general editor of the English edition and co-author with his father, Dr. Michael Meaney, of a chapter in the Pontifical Council for the Family’s Lexicon: Ambiguous and Debatable Terms Regarding Family, Life, and Ethical Questions and has published in a number of scholarly journals. He has also written many popular articles and has been interviewed by newspapers, radio, and television in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. His popular articles have appeared in the National Catholic Register, Crux, Inside Catholic, Crisis Magazine, Inside the Vatican, and many other publications.

Dr. Meaney, his wife, Marie, and their young daughter, Thérèse, moved to Pennsylvania from Paris in the summer of 2019.