He is Professor of Catholic Studies and director of the Centre for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, a research centre housed in the Department of Catholic Studies and focusing on the Catholic Church in the global South Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He has an undergraduate degree in Theology from the University of Notre Dame and a Master’s degree from Cambridge University in England. He spent two years working for the Church in a poor area of Santiago, Chile, under the military dictatorship. He earned a Ph.D. from Duke University, and taught at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota for 15 years before going to DePaul. His major areas of research have to do with the Church’s encounter with social, political, and economic realities. He has authored six books and edited three volumes that have been published in 10 languages.