Fellows

Bishop Joseph Oliach Eciru

Bishop Joseph Oliach Eciru is the third Bishop of Soroti, Uganda, having been appointed by Pope Francis on March 19, 2019, and consecrated on May 25, 2019. He holds a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and a Doctorate in Biblical Theology from the Pontifical Urbaniana University. Bishop Joseph has taught at several seminaries in Uganda. He served as a lecturer of Latin at St. Peter’s Seminary Madera and later as lecturer of Sacred Scripture at St. Paul’s National Seminary Kinyamasika in Fort Portal. Before his appointment as Bishop of Soroti Diocese, he was a lecturer of Sacred Scripture at St. Mary’s National Seminary in Ggaba, Kampala. His scholarly pursuits are complemented by his commitment to pastoral care and community development, where he emphasizes the integration of Catholic social teaching and local socio-economic challenges.

Fr. Francesco Giordano

Fr. Francesco Giordano has been Director of Human Life International’s Rome office since July, 2015. Born in France, Father Francesco Giordano’s mother is French, his father Italian and American. He lived in South Africa next, where he first learned English, then grew up largely in the United States, spending eighteen years there before moving back to Rome in September, 2005. He earned his MA from the University of Chicago and his doctorate in systematic theology from Santa Croce University in Rome. A diocesan priest and professor in Rome, Italy, he was ordained a priest January 10, 2009. He also teaches at both the Angelicum and the Rome program of Catholic University of America.

Dr. Jan Bentz

Dr. Jan C. Bentz was born and raised in Germany and holds a doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum (Rome, Italy) and a Masters in Sacred Art, Architecture, and Liturgy and a Masters in Church and Religious studies. Dr. Bentz is a Lecturer and Tutor at Blackfriars Studium (Blackfriars Hall) in Oxford. Past employment included an adjunct professorship at the Catholic University of America’s Rome program, a visiting professorship at Christendom College’s Rome Program, and teaching for IES Study Abroad in Rome. Prof. Bentz regularly contributes to The European Conservative and CATO and has worked as video producer for EWTN and contributed for Catholic News Agency, Jüdische Rundschau, Zenit, and H2O News in the past. His fields of expertise include Metaphysics, History of Philosophy, Thomism, and Philosophy of Art focusing on Christian Sacred Art. His philosophical research focus is philosophy of being, 17th and 18th century German idealism, Thomism, Utopia, and Transhumanism. He most recently edited a dedicatory book on Thomas Molnar. Theology of Creation is of specific interest to him within the framework of a metaphysics focused on being and the doctrine of the Ex-nihilo-creation. A proper cosmology and concept of being has repercussions in anthropology and even political philosophy, and thus must be properly elaborated given the truths about God, creation, and the human being.

Fr. Thomas Crean

Fr. Thomas Crean is a Dominican friar of the English province. He did his initial studies in philosophy and theology at Oxford University. He has a licence in theology from the Institut s. Thomas d’Aquin in Toulouse, and a doctorate from the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria. He is the author of Vindicating the Filioque: the Church Fathers at the Council of Florence (Emmaus Academic, 2023), and, with Alan Fimister, of Integralism: a Manual of Political Philosophy (Editiones Scholasticae, 2020). He lives at St Dominic’s priory in England, and teaches on-line for Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut. He has published in Antiphon, Augustinianum, Divinitas, and New Blackfriars.

Dr. Jennifer Bryson

Jennifer S. Bryson is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Catholic Women’s Forum. Dr. Bryson has a BA from Stanford University in Political Science, an MA from Yale University in History, and a PhD from Yale in Greco-Arabic and Islamic Studies from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. As an undergraduate at Stanford, she studied Marxism-Leninism for two semesters at the Karl Marx University in the former East Germany. She is currently translating works by the Catholic writer Ida Friederike Görres from German to English. Her first book-length translation, The Church in the Flesh, was released in October 2023. She is also studying the work of Augustin Rösler, CSsR, a late nineteenth/early twentieth century opponent of feminism and prominent advocate for the Catholic teaching on man, woman, and family. She is a Visiting Researcher at the European Institute for Philosophy and Theology at Hochschule Heiligenkreuz, Austria, where she lives. She is a contributor to Creation Theology Fellowship, where readers can find her Marvel, Believe, Care Creation Coloring Book and her puppet show, The Days of Creation. She writes on the Catholic Church, questions of man and woman in society, how to keep politics out of sports, and foreign affairs for journals such as Crisis Magazine, One Peter Five, The Lamp, and Public Discourse. You can find out more about Dr. Byron on her website.

Dr. Doyen Nguyen

Dr. Doyen Nguyen was born in Paris, France. She is from a Vietnamese family and grew up in a multicultural and multireligious environment. At the age of 15, she was baptized into the Catholic Church, and became a Lay Dominican in 2021. Dr. Nguyen is proficient in multiple languages, including English, French, Italian, and German, and she is learning Portuguese. She recieved an MD at Temple University School of Medicine in 1981 and an STD in moral theology at the Angelicum, graduating magna cum laude, in 2017. Her dissertation was entitled The New Paradigms of Death for Organ Transplantation: A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of Christian Ethics. She has published countless other books and articles in both medicine and theology, which can found in her CV. Apart from her academic and religious pursuits, Dr. Nguyen enjoys various hobbies that nourish her mind and body. She has a profound appreciation for classical European culture and classical music, with a particular fondness for composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky. Additionally, she finds solace in mountain walking, often exploring the scenic beauty of the Austrian Alps. Dr. Nguyen lives by a personal motto that reflects her approach to life: “Be childlike with critical thinking, be transparent and coherent.”

Fr. Daniel Dozier

Fr. Daniel G. Dozier is the Executive Chairman of God With Us Eastern Catholic Formation, the catechetical training and publishing arm for the Eastern Catholic bishops in the United States and the USCCB. He is an Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA, and is an Adjunct Instructor in Eastern Liturgy at the Liturgical Institute of the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, IL. He is the son of a Ukrainian deacon and a pastor of three Byzantine Catholic communities in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. He is married to Pani Karen Dozier, and they have three adult children and one grandchild.

Fr. Johannes Cornides

Fr. Johannes Cornides is a priest in the Community of the Beatitudes (ordained 2001 in Vienna by S.E. Christoph Card. Schönborn). He studied history in Vienna and Paris (Mag. phil. 1992) and theology in St. Pölten, Toulouse, Jerusalem, Paderborn and Trumau (Dr. theol. 2017) and is a faculty member of the Katholische Hochschule ITI. Living since 2022 in Emmaus – Nicopolis /Israel, the place where Jesus broke bread for his disciples, Fr. Johannes enjoys the privilege to minister to pilgrims from all over the world.

institute coordinator

Gideon Lazar

Gideon Lazar received a BA in Classics and Medieval/Byzantine Studies from the Catholic University of America. Having grown up in a Jewish family, he was baptized in 2018 and received into the Catholic Church in 2019. He is currently an MA Theology student at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary. He is the editor for the Creation Theology Fellowship and creates YouTube videos on his channel The Byzantine Scotist. He has published articles in New Polity magazine, The Josias, and The American Postliberal. He currently lives near Seattle with his wife and two kids.