Berkley Center

José Casanova is one of the world's leading scholars in the sociology of religion and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center, where his work focuses on globalization, religions, and secularization. He is also professor emeritus at Georgetown University, where he previously taught in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. During 2017 he was the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North at the U.S. Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center, where he worked on a book manuscript on Early Modern Globalization through a Jesuit Prism. He has published works on a broad range of subjects, including religion and globalization, migration and religious pluralism, transnational religions, and sociological theory. His best-known work, Public Religions in the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 1994), has become a modern classic in the field and has been translated into several languages, including Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish. In 2012, Casanova was awarded the Theology Prize from the Salzburger Hochschulwochen in recognition of his life-long achievement in the field of theology. Casanova is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Edmund Kee-Fook Chia is a senior lecturer in the Department of Theology at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, where he has been a faculty member since 2011. Prior to his current role, he served as associate professor and chair of the doctrinal studies department at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. From 1996 to 2004, he served as executive secretary of interreligious dialogue for the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences. He is the editor of Dialogue: Resource Manual for Catholics in Asia (2001) and co-editor of A Longing for Peace: The Challenge of a Multicultural, Multireligious World (2006) and Mission After Christendom (2008). Chia holds a B.A. from Lewis University, masters degrees from the University of Maryland and Catholic University of America, and a Ph.D. from the University of Nijmegen.

Gemma Tulud Cruz is a faculty member at Australian Catholic University, where she is a researcher with the Institute for Religion & Critical Inquiry. She is also coordinator of the Catholic Theological Society of America's Globalization Interest Group. Cruz's research expertise is on migration, Catholic social ethics, and on contextual theologies, particularly feminist, liberation, and Asian theologies. Cruz is also interested in research in the area of missiology and intercultural theology, as well as on the topic of globalization. Previously, she was assistant professor in theology at St. Ambrose University, then visiting assistant professor in Catholic studies and fellow at the Centre for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago. Cruz received an undergraduate degree in education and a master’s degree in religious studies in the Philippines. She completed her Ph.D. in theology at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen in the Netherlands with a dissertation on Filipina migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong.

Jose Mario Francisco, S.J., is the president of Ateneo de Manila University’s Loyola School of Theology, where he also serves as a professor of philosophical theological and cultural studies. He is a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Society of Jesus. Previously, Francisco worked as a faculty member at the Loyola School of Theology, the East Asian Pastoral Institute, and the Jesuit School of Theology. From 2005 to 2006, Francisco served as the Gasson Chair professor at Boston College. He also serves as a member of the Technical Panel on Catholic Religious Education of the Commission on Higher Education for the government of the Philippines. He received his B.S. in chemistry and his M.A. in literature from Ateneo de Manila University before receiving his licentiate in sacred theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. He received his Ph.D. in theology from the Graduate Theological Union.

Philip Gibbs, S.V.D., is the head of the department of governance and leadership at Divine Word University in Papua, New Guinea. Gibbs is a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Society of the Divine Word. Throughout his time in the priesthood, Gibbs has served in a number of capacities, including as a visiting lecturer at the East Asian Pastoral Institute in 2010, a research advisor for Caritas Australia in 2013, and as the secretary of the Commission for Social Concerns for the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Gibbs earned his B.A. from Canterbury University, his master of divinity from the Catholic Theological Union, and his licentiate in sacred theology and his doctorate of sacred theology from Gregorian University. Most recently, Gibbs earned his MBA from Divine Word University.

Peter C. Phan is the inaugural holder of the Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought in the Georgetown University Department of Theology and Religious Studies and a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center. His research deals with the theology of icons in Orthodox theology, patristic theology, eschatology, the history of Christian missions in Asia, and liberation, inculturation, and interreligious dialogue. He is the author and editor of over 30 books and has published over 300 essays. His writings have been translated into Arabic, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, and Vietnamese, and have received many awards from learned societies. He is the first non-Anglo to be elected president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and president of the American Theological Society. In 2010 he received the John Courtney Murray Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Catholic Theological Society of America for outstanding achievement in theology. Phan has earned three doctorates.