February 24, 2014
Father Ronald G. Roberson, CSP, has been appointed as a consultor to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Oriental Churches. Father Roberson, who currently serves as associate director for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, was “surprised” at last week’s announcement.
“This means that I will be among the 20 or 25 people the Oriental Congregation may consult with in its work with the Eastern Catholic Churches that come under its jurisdiction,’ explained Father Roberson, 63.
There are more than twenty Eastern Catholic Churches in the world today, all of them of an eastern tradition similar to the Orthodox, but in full communion with the Catholic Church. The largest churches are the Maronite Catholic Church based in Lebanon, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in the Middle East, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Syro-Malabar Church in India. Altogether they have between 15 and 20 million members, according to Father Roberson.
Father Roberson’s path to the Paulists began studying political science at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. He converted to Catholicism while still a student, and graduated in 1972. He found the Paulists through advertising.
“I just thought [the Paulists] sounded interesting,” recalled Father Roberson, who became interested in the Eastern Churches while in the seminary, where he befriended some Eastern Catholic students.
“I was especially impressed by the eastern understanding of the human person,” he said.
After his 1977 ordination, Father Roberson spent five years in pastoral ministry in Montreal, Quebec, and went on to earn a doctorate in Oriental Ecclesiastical Sciences from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome in 1988.
Father Roberson then served as a member of the staff of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity from 1988-92, during which time he worked on relations with the Orthodox Churches.
In 1995, Father Roberson took up his current position at the USCCB, and staffs dialogues on the national level with the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Polish National Catholic and Episcopal Churches, as well as the new ecumenical initiative, Christian Churches Together in the USA. He is also a Catholic member of the international dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches.