by Deacon Doug Lovejoy, Colonel, USA (Ret), MPA, Ph.D.
The 29th USCCA Conference, held in Chicago on August 2–4, 2024, marked a significant step forward for the US-China Catholic Association. As an observer who has been involved with China for over 60 years, both as a soldier and as an ordained deacon of the Catholic Church, I have been personally involved with China and the efforts of the US. Catholic Church to develop open relations with the Church in China as the country has developed from the Mao era to the present day.
The USCCA was founded in 1989 as a result of efforts by major Catholic religious orders to establish and expand relations with Chinese Catholics reached by their original mission work. This year's conference was the first held under new leadership, predominantly made up of lay people. As such, the conference set the stage for new and more cautiously expansive work in the future.
More importantly, the Conference addressed the changing nature of the relationships between the Universal Catholic Church, the Church in China, and the involvement of the Church in the United States. The subjects and specifics of conference presentations reflected these changes and highlighted the areas of challenge and opportunity. Speakers represented the continuing work of the Association as well as new areas of interaction with China that reflected these challenges and opportunities. Representative Speakers included the acclaimed historian of China, Professor Anthony Clark, of Whitworth University; Bishop Junmin Pei of Liaoning Diocese in China; Notre Dame Professor George Enderle, who has organized a recent international conference in China on business ethics; and many more scholars and practitioners who addressed communication networks among Chinese Catholics, opportunities for teaching in China, and opportunities for sharing the faith with Chinese students in the US. The latter is an important, if not crucial, field of evangelization as well as simple intercultural and intellectual dialogue.
The scope of the presentations and informal interactions represents the increasing width and depth of possible interactions and relations between the Churches in China and the US. Of equal, if not more, importance for the future was the active and extensive interchange between older and younger generations. Add on to this the promise of increased interaction between American and Chinese Catholics, especially clergy and consecrated religious, both working or studying here in the US and those in China itself.
Deacon Doug Lovejoy is a USCCA Board Member, USCCA Executive Director Emeritus, US Army veteran, and specialist in Chinese politics who has taught at West Point and Princeton University.
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