In 2010, a Florida pastor with just a few dozen followers attracted international media coverage when he announced plans to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11. By taking the bait, media outlets became complicit in advancing his hate-filled agenda, making Terry Jones a household name in the U.S. and far beyond. […]

Valerie Hoffman is the head professor in the department of religion at the University of Illinois in Champaign, and the former director of its Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. She is an expert on Islam and in 2012 organized and participated in a conference on the Rohingya at the center.

Wakar Uddin is director general of the Arakan Rohingya Union, an umbrella organization of Rohingya advocacy groups worldwide. He is also a professor of plant pathology and microbiology at Penn State University.

Bill Patenaude is a special lecturer of theology at Providence College in Rhode Island. He is the chief author of Catholic Ecology, where he has speculated about what Pope Francis’ encyclical might contain. Contact via Chrissy Centazzo.

Michael Peppard is an assistant professor at Fordham University in New York City.

Veerabhadran Ramanathan is a distinguished professor of atmospheric and climate sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and an “ordinary academician” at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome. His work is expected to have contributed to Pope Francis’ encyclical.

Marc Morano is executive director of ClimateDepot.com and communications director at Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a conservative think tank in Washington that is skeptical of man-made climate change. He has been critical of Pope Francis’ involvement in climate change issues and his reliance on United Nations climate change data.

Thomas Peters started and runs the American Papist blog and works with Catholic Vote. He speaks about Catholicism and politics, pro-life issues and pro-family activism, the future of social media and youth activism.

Lisa A. Keister is a professor of sociology at Duke University in Durham, N.C. She has written several books examining the link between religion and poverty as well as prosperity.