Father Roderick has served as Secretary General of the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR) since 1993. The Coalition is a consortium of over fifty-five organizations working together to champion the rights of minorities living in Islamic countries. Members of the Coalition include Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Assyrians, Armenians, Bahai, Copts, Lebanese, Indonesians, Iranians, Pakistanis, Indians, Sudanese, Nigerians, and others. He has testified to the Senate and House of Representatives on the issue of religious freedom and human rights concerns of non-Muslim minorities in Islamic countries. He has been interviewed and published articles on minorities in the Middle East for national and international media. Father Roderick continues to work with leaders of the minority communities in the Middle East to promote security and equality.
Formerly he was the Director of Spoon River College in Macomb, Illinois and taught religion and philosophy for fifteen years. He founded the Society of St. Stephen in 1982 that worked on behalf of religious prisoners of conscience and their families in the former Soviet Union. He served as Christian Solidarity International’s Representative in Washington, D.C. until 2009. He served as the Co-Director of the International Task Force, formerly The Task Force on Soviet Jewry, Executive Director of the Sudan Campaign, Co-Chairs the Coalition to Save Iraq’s Christians and Other Defenseless Minorities. Is on the Board of Directors/Advisors of the Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy (Darfur), Religious Freedom Coalition (Washington, D.C.), Institut de l’Europe Libre (Paris), International Christian Union, and Middle East Concern (Cyprus) and International Christian Union.
He is an Episcopal priest of the Diocese of Springfield, presently serving as Dean and Rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Carbondale.