(LifeSiteNews) – Professor Fenggang Yang, a faculty member at Purdue University and religious freedom advocate, alleged that the board chair of the U.S.-China Catholic Association (USCCA), which is known to be pro-sinicization, was given orders by two Chinese officials to cancel his keynote address at this weekend’s biennial USCCA conference at a Catholic university in Texas.

In an exclusive statement to LifeSiteNews, Professor Yang, who has been critical of both the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Christians and the secret 2018 Vatican-China deal and had initially been listed as the keynote speaker for the July 31-August 2 conference at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, explained that after accepting the invitation to speak at the conference in September 2025 he received an email from USCCA board chair Peter Tan in May saying that he was confronted about Yang’s participation in the conference by two unnamed Chinese government officials.

Yang said that, two weeks later, he was removed as a conference speaker without advance notice and was asked that the entire matter remain confidential. He further alleged that after several Zoom meetings and email exchanges with multiple USCCA board members, he received little to no explanation as to why he was removed, and when he finally received a letter officially disinviting him from the event, it asked him to keep the issue “confidential.”

In addition to its abrupt removal of Yang from the conference, a source known to LifeSite alleged that the USCCA Board under Tan also removed its only member who opposed sinicization and was sympathetic to Cardinal Joseph Zen, persecuted Chinese Catholic businessman Jimmy Lai, and the entire underground Church.

The conference, entitled “Following the Way of Christ: Nourishing Trust and Friendship,” also has the full backing of the Archdiocese of Houston-Galveston, with Archbishop Joe Vásquez scheduled to celebrate one of the Masses for the conference.

Prof. Yang’s cancellation

In his statement to LifeSite, Yang recalled receiving his first email from Tan in which the board director allegedly explained his confrontation with two government officials over his planned keynote address during a trip to China.

“Two weeks before my keynote was canceled, I received the first email from Peter Tan, the chair of the USCCA Board of Directors, on Saturday, May 16, 2026, saying, ‘I just returned from China. While I was in Shanghai, I was confronted by two government officials regarding your participation in our conference,'” he told LifeSite.

READ: China-Vatican deal on bishops is ‘escalating repression’ of Catholics: Human Rights Watch

“On Monday, May 18, we talked on Zoom. Peter Tan told me that two Chinese officials met with him and asked him to remove my name from the conference program,” he added. “I asked Peter Tan for the identities of the officials and the reasons they gave him to remove me from the program. Peter Tan said he was not sure of their exact identities, nor any reason they gave him. Nevertheless, Peter asked me to consider withdrawing from the conference program.”

Yang said he told Tan that he wished to proceed with his talk as planned because the threats were vague and his planned talk, entitled “Transforming Guanxi: Chinese Christian Transnational Ties and the Making of Social and Spiritual Capital,” was not politically sensitive.

At that point, the professor questioned why Chinese officials apparently “have the authority to require a U.S. organization to remove a speaker from its conference program for unspecified reasons.” He noted that “this is an egregious violation of both religious freedom and academic freedom in the United States.”

Yang emphasized that Tan told him that it was likely the university and the archdiocese would order the cancellation of the conference altogether if he did not withdraw. Yang said that he asked Tan to speak with both and get back to him. He also said that he would ultimately respect the board of directors’ decision if they decided to disinvite him.

However, Tan never confirmed whether he had spoken with the archdiocese or the university or whether he had gotten back to him on the board’s decision and instead just removed Yang’s name from the conference program without informing him.

“This made me wonder: Who is Peter Tan? Why does he take Chinese officials’ instruction to silence me for an academic presentation at a religious association’s conference? Is it a decision by the USCCA Board of Directors to cancel my keynote?” Yang told LifeSite.

The professor noted that he then spent weeks pressing Tan and another member of the board, Anne Tsui, for an explanation and then a formal letter disinviting him from the conference that he received on June 29.

This letter requested Yang’s withdrawal and asked him to “keep this letter and the details of this situation strictly confidential.” While he agreed to withdraw from the conference, the professor would not promise to remain silent.

Yang further underscored how his cancellation shows the USCCA’s complacency with China’s transnational repression.

“China’s transnational repression has become quite well known by now. Still, the willing cooperation of the USCCA with China’s transnational repression is disappointing and troubling,” he said. “It is a shame that a U.S.-based Catholic organization has become part of China’s long-arm repression in the United States.”

After Yang’s cancellation, distinguished sociologist Professor Richard Madsen allegedly refused to attend the conference and resigned from the board.

USCCA, ‘sinicization,’ and the Sino-Vatican deal

The USCCA was founded in 1989 by the Jesuits, the Maryknoll religious movement, and several bishops to inform the American Church and the general public about the needs and circumstances of the Church in China. Today, the organization’s aim is to build fraternal ties between “the Catholic communities on both sides of the Pacific.”

However, a source known to LifeSiteNews who chose to remain anonymous told LifeSite that the organization has been promoting voices who support the CCP’s policy of “sinicization” while silencing voices who have spoken out about the underground Catholic Church, especially under the leadership of Tan, who also serves as a board member of St. Mary’s seminary in Houston and as a leader on the local the Knights of Columbus.

The source stressed that, in addition to Yang’s cancellation, under Tan’s direction, the USCCA’s board removed its only member who openly sympathized with Cardinal Zen, Jimmy Lai, and the betrayed underground faithful in China, without any formal procedure or explanation.

Indeed, the CCP’s policy of “sinicization” calls for churches and other places of worship and religious teachings to reflect both Chinese culture and Communist ideology.

Steven Mosher, a Catholic social scientist and president of the Population Research Institute, told LifeSite that the government’s sinicization policy is not really about Chinese culture but rather about political control and forcing the Chinese faithful to adapt to its Marxist ideology.

“Shi Taifeng, who, as the head of the Party’s United Front Works Department, is in overall charge of the Sinicization project, openly admits that the policy of Sinicization has a political rather than a cultural meaning,” Mosher said. “That is to say, it has nothing to do with Chinese cultural traditions. Rather, it means that Catholics in China must adapt to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist state and its ideology.”

READ: Communist China still fears Christianity, and Jimmy Lai’s sentence proves it

Mosher continued:

Calling the Party’s policy on religion Sinicization is misleading, especially to Westerners. It would be more accurate to call it ‘Marxification.’

We have seen this at play before – in Nazi Germany. Just as Lutheran and Catholic churches in Germany were forced to serve the goals of the Third Reich, so are churches in China forced to foster the worship of the Chinese Party-State and its ‘core leader’ Xi Jinping.

Sinicization is closely tied to the officially secret Sino-Vatican deal signed in 2018 that is believed to recognize the state-approved church in China and to allow the CCP to appoint bishops. The pope apparently retains veto power, though in practice it is the CCP that has control. It also allegedly allows the removal of legitimate bishops and their replacement with CCP-approved bishops.

READ: New Chinese bishop approved by Pope Leo, CCP officially consecrated

Thus, the deal makes it much easier for the CCP to force Chinese Catholics to conform to its ideology. This deal was renewed most recently in 2024 for a four-year period.

Since the secret deal was signed, several prominent Catholic prelates, including Cardinal Zen, have sharply criticized the agreement. The 94-year-old cardinal once described the agreement as an “incredible betrayal” of China’s Catholics and even accused the Vatican of “selling out” the Chinese faithful.

Other troubling conference attendees

Several attendees of this year’s conference have a history of supporting both sinicization and the Vatican-China deal. Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, a Belgian Missionhurst priest who was previously a member of the Vatican Commission for the Church in China under Pope Benedict XVI and is the recipient of the USCAA’s 2026 Venerable Matteo Ricci Award, has been one of the most vocal proponents of the secret 2018 agreement.

In 2023, the priest even allegedly denied journalist Nina Shea’s request for the names of 17 Chinese bishops who, according to the Pontifical Institute on Foreign Missions, are being persecuted by the CCP, saying that he “favors dialogue instead.”

The USCCA and the Archdiocese of Houston-Galveston did not respond to LifeSite’s requests for comment by publication time.

A spokesperson for the University of St. Thomas defended hosting the conference, stressing the university’s commitment to engaging with “difficult questions.”

“For nearly 80 years, UST has served as a place where difficult questions are explored and evaluated seriously,” the spokesperson said. “Our mission is grounded in the values of goodness, discipline, knowledge, and community.”

“The University of St. Thomas is deeply committed to human dignity and produces scholarly programming throughout the year that engages difficult questions about suffering and compassion around the world.”

Concerned faithful can reach out to [email protected] for guidance on taking further action.

Updated.

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