Scholarly Panels
Contributions from academics drawing on the method and resources of their respective disciplines.
Panels / topics proposed to date:
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Sino-Vatican Relations in Historical Perspective
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Sociological Perspectives on Christianity
in Contemporary China -
The Sinicisation of Religion in China Today
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Environmental Issues and the Faith Communities of China
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suggestions for panels and topics
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suggestions concerning speakers (including yourself)
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submission of brief abstracts
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other suggestions or feedback
Note: Panel organizers (only) will have conference registration fees waived in appreciation for their service to the gathering.
Presentations and
workshops
Discussion forums and practical advice from people involved in the life of the Church in China and in the Chinese diaspora.
Practical workshops and presentations requested to date:
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Faith and the Current Generation
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Social Services: Making a Contribution in China Society
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The American University Context
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Relations among Christians and China
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Paths to Discipleship
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Religion in the City
Click this button for a form to enter:
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suggestions for workshops or presentations
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suggestions concerning speakers (including yourself)
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other suggestions or feedback
Note: Presenters will have their conference registration fees waived in appreciation for their service to the gathering.
LOCAL ORDINARY
Most Rev. Michael C. Barber, SJ
Bishop of the Diocese of Oakland
Bishop Michael Barber is the fifth bishop of the Diocese of Oakland, serving the Church and the wider community in Oakland since May, 2013. He entered the Society of Jesus (commonly known as the Jesuits) in 1973 and was ordained a priest by Archbishop John R. Quinn of San Francisco in 1985. Educated at Gonzaga University (Spokane), Regis College (Toronto), Gregorian University (Rome), and Oxford University (England), he served as a naval chaplain with distinction over many years, rising to the rank of Captain. Before taking the helm of the Diocese of Oakland, he served as Director of the School of Pastoral Leadership in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, professor at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, and Director of Spiritual Formation at St. John’s Seminary in the Archdiocese of Boston. Conversant in Italian, French, Samoan and liturgical Spanish, he now heads one of the most diverse and engaging dioceses in California.
Board of Directors
OFFICERS
Thomas McGuire
Chair of the Board
Chicago, Illinois
Tom McGuire’s service and friendship with Chinese colleagues dates back to his days as a Maryknoll Missionary in Hong Kong. While serving in campus ministry at Detroit Mercy University, he also participated in the life of the local Chinese Catholic community of Michigan. As Chair of USCCA Board, Mr. McGuire seeks the guidance of the Holy Spirit to build the solidarity of friendship between members of the Catholic Church in China and the United States.
Rev. Francis Li, D.Min
Vice Chair
Chicago, Illinois
Fr. Francis was ordained in 1999. He has served at three very diverse parishes before he being named the Pastor of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, a parish with two worship sites, St. Therese Chinese Catholic Church and St. Barbara Catholic Church. He received his Advanced Pastoral Leadership Certificate through the Kellogg School of Management and the Doctor of Ministry Degree from the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, in 2016. He has a passion for Evangelization and enjoys readings, sports, and contemporary cinema.
Rose Bai (白柔子)
Secretary
Schaumberg, Illinois
Originally from Xi'an, China, Rose Bai was born into a devout Catholic family. She came to the U.S. after high school and graduated from the College of St. Benedict, Minnesota, in 2015. She obtained a Master's in Applied Statistics from Loyola University Chicago in 2017. Rose now works for Zurich Insurance Company in the Chicago area as a data analyst. She also translates into Chinese works by highly reputed Catholic authors such as Daniel Harrington, SJ (Meeting St. Mark Today) and Stephen Binz (Women of the Torah by Stephen Binz, Women of the Gospels). In her spare time, Rose enjoys watercolor painting. In all she does, Rose hopes to serve as an instrument of God and to pass on the beauty of the faith to all who would like to share it.
Deacon Doug Lovejoy, Ph.D.
Treasurer
Annapolis, Maryland
Deacon Doug Lovejoy has served Church, Society, and the USCCA over the course of a long and distinguished career. He received his bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame, a master's degree from Princeton, and a doctorate in international relations from the Catholic University of America. His dissertation “Uncertain Opening” addressed relations between the Catholic Church and China in post-Mao era. He has taught Chinese Politics at West Point, Princeton, and the College of New Jersey. Following a career that included twenty-four years as a China specialist for the Army, Deacon Lovejoy also took over as executive director of the USCCA (at the time known as the U.S. Catholic China Bureau) from 2003 to 2006. He and his wife Jean have been married for fifty years and they have five children and nine grandchildren. Though currently retired, he continues to serve as a deacon in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
MEMBERS
Rev. Fernando Luis Barreto Mercado, SJ
Associate Director
Rome, Italy
Fr. Fernando Luis Barreto Mercado, SJ, is a native of Puerto Rico. He was born in Ponce in 1979. He entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 2004. After completing studies in the Dominican Republic, Spain, and Puerto Rico, in 2012 he was assigned to the Chinese Province of the Jesuits. After taking an intensive course in Mandarin, he moved on to study theology at the Fu Jen Faculty of Theology of St. Robert Bellarmine, located in greater Taipei. In 2015, he moved to the Bay Area (California) to pursue further studies in theology, where for three years, he served the Chinese Catholic Community. In July 2018, he was ordained a priest and was missioned to work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Since 2020, he pursues studies in Theology of Religions (Missiology) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, with the intention of working in interreligious dialogue in the future.
Rev. Rob Carbonneau, CP, Ph.D.
Director Emeritus
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Father Rob served as Executive Director of the U.S.-China Catholic Association (2014-2017). Presently he is the official historian for the St. Paul of the Cross Province of the Passionists and member of the Passionist International Historical Commission. He is an Affiliated Research Fellow at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Culture of the University of San Francisco and an adjunct professor in the Department of History of the University of Scranton. Fr. Carbonneau received his doctorate in American and East Asian History from Georgetown University. He has taught at American colleges and universities and as a foreign expert in Chongqing, China (2007-2008). His research and publications focus is the Passionists in China and the U.S.
Rev. John S. Chen, Ph.D.
Director
Boston, Massachusetts
Fr. John Chen currently serves as a pastor in the Boston Archdiocese. After graduating from Boston College with Ph.D. in Higher Education in 2003, he went back to China to serve the Catholic Church as the executive vice rector of the National Seminary in Beijing. During his tenure, the seminary was transformed from one single class of seminarians into an institution with about 200 students (seminarians, priests, religious sisters and laity), as well as a graduate program in theology. He published a book entitled The Rise and Fall of Furen University, Beijing (Routledge-Palmer, New York).
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Anthony E. Clark, Ph.D., FRHistS
Director Emeritus
Spokane, Washington
Dr. Anthony E. Clark is Edward B. Lindaman Endowed Chair at Whitworth University, the distinguished Combe Trust Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of London. He is professor of late-imperial Chinese history and director of the Asian Studies Program at Whitworth University. His publications include China Gothic: The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral (2019), A Chinese Jesuit Catechism: Giulio Aleni's Four Character Classic (2021), China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation: Observations of an “Outsider” (2020), Heaven in Conflict: Franciscans and the Boxer Uprising in Shanxi (2015) and China’s Christianity: From Missionary to Indigenous Church (edited volume, 2017). Clark’s scholarship centers on Sino-Christian cultural exchange in late-imperial China, including an examination of the place of Catholic martyrs. He received his doctorate in classical sinology under Dr. Stephen Durrant, in the lineage of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, Fr. Father Jozef Mullie, CICM, Dr. Peter Boodberg, and Fr. Paul Serruys, CICM. His is a tradition of comparative research into China’s long intellectual and religious exchange with the West.
Most Rev. John S. Cummins
Director Emeritus
Oakland, California
John S. Cummins is Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Oakland. Throughout his distinguished career, he has worked for ecumenism and social justice in the spirit of Vatican II. For 22 years he was fraternal delegate to the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, and that gave him the opportunity to visit to Hong Kong and mainland China. In his own diocese, he has been good friend to the Bay Area Chinese community. In 1998 he sponsored the first meeting of local Chinese American Catholics, inviting then Father John Tong, who subsequently became Cardinal Archbishop of Hong Kong, as the keynote speaker. He also maintained a long and enduring friendship with the most admired Archbishop Dominic Tang Yee-Ming, SJ, the exiled bishop of Guangzhou. Under his leadership four parishes scheduled Sunday Mass in Chinese, and the InterFrienship House for visiting scholars and students from mainland China was established in Berkeley.
Zachary Davis
Director
Brooklyn, New York
Originally from Ohio, Zac Davis attended Loyola University Chicago and now resides in New York City. While at Loyola Chicago, Mr. Davis was named a prestigious Ricci Scholar, which enabled him to study for a year abroad, one semester in Rome and one semester at the Jesuit-run Beijing Center for Chinese Studies. Upon graduation from Loyola Chicago, he began work at America Magazine, where he currently serves as assistant editor. His work has been featured in the Washington Post and Catholic News Service. In the fall of 2017 he co-produced and narrated a well-received short web documentary on the Catholic Church in China.
Jim Gradoville
Associate Director
Portland, Oregon
Jim lived in China for 20 years, working in both the corporate and NGO sectors. While not a China scholar or linguist, he has an abiding interest in the relationship between China and the United States and the world and believes we need to build bridges wisely with China. His experience as board chairmen of The Beijing Center from 2007 to 2011 introduced him to the work of the Jesuits in China and kindled a fond appreciation of their work and the commitment by the Catholic Church to engage the China government, its people and believers. In China, he was Motorola's vice president, Asia Pacific government relations and later the president of United Technologies Corporation-China. He then served as the CEO of the World Wildlife Fund-China and later the deputy director of operations at the International Potato Center-China, an agriculture research-for-development organization. In 2004, he served as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the American Chamber of Commerce-China, and in 2008 he was an Olympics torchbearer in Jingzhou, Hubei.
Rev. Joseph Yougou Jiang, SJ, Ph.D.
Associate Director
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Fr. Jiang is a member of the Chinese Province of the Jesuits. During his early years as a Jesuit, he worked with UNESCO, the UNHCR, and other international organizations, where the focus of his work was higher education, spirituality, student development, liberal arts, and international studies in Asia and Europe. He earned a doctorate in education granted jointly by Boston College and Harvard University. He has published several books on international and liberal arts education, as well as translations of works on higher education, student development, and spirituality. He currently serves as an administrator and professor at Boston College.
Sr. Maria Lai, CSJ
Director Emerita
Los Angeles, California
Sister Maria Lai is a Sister of Saint Joseph, Orange. She grew up in Hong Kong. She earned an MA in Pastoral Theology from Loyola Marymount University (LMU), an MA in Learning Technologies from Pepperdine University, and an MS in Family Consumer Sciences from California State University, Northridge. Since 2012 she has been called to journey with the graduate students at LMU as a spiritual director and resident minister. Sister Maria also serves as director of religious education at St. Bridget Chinese Catholic Parish. And she is a facilitator at the Virtual Learning Community for Faith Formation at Dayton University. In addition, she serves as a mentor for survivors of human trafficking, which she finds very meaningful.
Pius K. Leung, CCIM, MRICS, CPM
Director
Sugar Land, Texas
Pius Leung came to the United States from Hong Kong in 1977. He received a Master of Accountancy from the University of Mississippi and an Honorary Doctor of Finance in 2004 from the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China. He was the Chief Administrative Officer and Managing Director - Americas of ARGUS Software from 2006 to 2013 and currently is the Executive Vice President of RealNex, a real estate software company. In 2005 he was elected the 39th President of the CCIM Institute, commercial real estate’s most influential professional organization. He became the President of the CCIM Foundation in 2017. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Catholic Charities - Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
Rev. Joseph Lin, CM
Director
Queens, New York
Fr. Joseph Lin belongs to the China Province of the Congregation of Mission founded by St. Vincent de Paul, also known as the Vincentians, whose central charism is to share the Gospel with those who have been marginalized in society. Fr. Lin received his master's degree in Scripture at St John’s University in 2011, and currently he is pursuing advance graduate studies in pastoral counseling and spiritual care at Fordham University. He served the Chinese community at the Church of St. Joseph in Manhattan until 2017, and now he serves as parochial vicar at the Church of St. Agatha in Brooklyn.
Luke Liu
Associate Director
Sugar Land, Texas
Luke Liu is a sixth generation Catholic from Sichuan, China. He holds a master’s in public policy from Carnegie Mellon University, and a certificate of distinction in democratic development from Stanford University. Having launched a career as an engineer in China and Europe, he then turned his focus to civil society and international education. Currently a teacher in Houston, he is also developing programs for young people from around the world to study in America.
Br. John Chrysostom Liting Long, OSB
Associate Director
Collegeville, Minnesota
Br. John Chrysostom is a Benedictine monk of Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. He was a member of Trinity Benedictine Monastery, Fujimi, Japan, one of the foundations/ dependent priories of Saint John's Abbey. Br. John Chrysostom moved back to Saint John's Abbey when Trinity Benedictine Monastery officially closed in 2016. He now serves as a Faculty Resident, living in Mary Hall with some fifty undergraduates and Assistant Guestmaster of the Abbey Guesthouse.
Richard Madsen, Ph.D.
Director Emeritus
San Diego, California
Richard Madsen is Distinguished Professor of Sociology of the University of California, San Diego and Director of the Fudan University - UC Center on Contemporary China. He is author or editor of twelve books and numerous articles on society in the modern world, meaning, values, and comparative sociology, including Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (1984), China's Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society (1998), and Democracy's Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan (2007). A respected scholar who has spoken before Congressional and Vatican committees, Professor Madsen has long been a friend of the China Association.
Rev. Doug Mullin, OSB
Director Emeritus
Collegeville, Minnesota
Douglas Mullin is a Benedictine monk and a priest of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. After a long, distinguished career as an educator and administrator at the elementary, high school, and university levels, Fr. Doug now serves as a chaplain at the St. Cloud VA Medical Center. Since the early 1990’s Fr. Doug has been developing deep, ongoing friendships with seminarians, priests, sisters and lay people from China who have studied at Saint John’s Graduate School of Theology.
Rev. Hugh O’Donnell, CM, Ph.D.
Director
Chicago, Illinois
Throughout his career, Fr. O'Donnell has held leadership and formation positions in the U.S., China, and in France. Born of Irish immigrant parents in Chicago in 1934, he entered the Congregation of Mission (the Vincentians) in 1952. Ordained a priest in 1961, he eventually went on for doctoral studies in Biblical theology, receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, in 1966. He then served as professor and formation director at St. Thomas Seminary in Denver (1966-1975), as rector at Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis (1975-1978), and as provincial superior of the Midwest Province Congregation of the Mission (1978-1987). After returning to St. Thomas Seminary as professor of theology and formation director, in 1993 he accepted the mission to Taiwan as provincial superior there. Under his tenure, the Vincentians re-entered China for the first time since 1950. Then from 2003 to 2009 he served as director of the Center for International Formation at the Vincentian motherhouse in Paris. Now based in the U.S., Fr. O'Donnell founded and heads up an annual five-week summer program on leadership at De Paul University for sisters and priests from China.
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Damiano Servidio
Associate Director
Rockaway, New Jersey
Damiano is a vice president and underwriting manager with Everest Insurance. Prior to joining Everest he worked at Zurich Insurance (US) for 20 years, where he served in various management roles in both underwriting and claims.
Damiano received his Juris Doctorate from Saint Louis University School of Law (1992) and a Bachelor of Arts from Fordham University (1989). He is an active member of St. Cecilia’s Church in Rockaway, New Jersey and has been a Knight of Columbus (Council #3359), serving in a range of officer roles since 2006. Damiano has served as a volunteer for the USCCA over the past 3 years.
Mary Sluka
Director Emerita
Riverside, Illinois
Mary Sluka's service to the USCCA stems from her time as a graduate student in Asian Studies from the University of Hawaii. She also has a graduate degree in Pastoral Studies from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A long-time member of the Board of the USCCA, she served as Secretary for almost a decade. While serving with the USCCA, she has helped introduce the Montessori-based "Catechesis of the Good Shepherd" to China, organize several national conferences of the USCCA, lead a study tour to Hong Kong and China, and give talks on the Church in China in parishes in several U.S. cities, where she has always found congregants to be deeply inspired by the stories of Chinese Catholics.
Anne S. Tsui, Ph.D.
Director
Paradise Valley, Arizona
Dr. Anne Tsui (PhD., University of California, Los Angeles; Honorary Doctorate, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland) is Distinguished Adjunct Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Professor emerita at Arizona State University, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Peking University and Fudan University, China. She is the 67th President of the Academy of Management, a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, and the 14th Editor the Academy of Management Journal. Since 2000, Dr. Tsui has worked with the leading business schools of China, and she founded the International Association for Chinese Management Research and Management and Organization Review. She has been a leading force in the development of Chinese management research. In addition, as a co-founder of the Responsible Research in Business and Management, she leads a global effort to transform business research into a force for the common good.
Stephen C. Tsai, Ph.D.
Associate Director
Walnut Creek, California
Steve Tsai came to the United States in 1970 for graduate studies. He attended the University of Rhode Island and U. C. Berkeley where he majored in Civil Engineering and Earthquake Engineering. After graduation, he worked at a Geotechnical Engineering firm for 5 years before joining the California State University, Long Beach. He is Professor Emeritus in California State University, Long Beach where he served in the College of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Management for over thirty years before his retirement in 2014.
Dr. Tsai was also Executive Director for Inter Friendship House Association (IFHA) in Los Angeles for over ten years. IFHA of Southern California has served visiting Chinese scholars in the US since 1989. Its activities include providing needed assistance and various services such as English Classes, culture workshop and field trips for visiting Chinese scholars.
Jean-Paul Wiest, Ph.D.
Director Emeritus
Newcastle, Washington
Jean-Paul Wiest’s commitment to serving the Chinese Church was launched by his study of Father Vincent Lebbe, the great Belgian missionary who in the early 1900s advocated transfer of leadership of the Church in China to native clergy. After earning a License in Sacred Theology, Mr. Wiest left his native France to teach at Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taiwan. He went on to earn a doctorate in Chinese history at the University of Washington in Seattle, writing his dissertation on the Catholic Church in South China. Dr. Wiest has taught at the Maryknoll School of Theology, directing their Mission Research Center and their Society History Program for some twenty years. From 2003 to 2011, Dr. Wiest was Research Director at the Beijing Center for Chinese Studies. During his distinguished career, he has mentored and collaborated with a wide range of Western and Chinese scholars.