Trustees
Anna Rowlands
Chair
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Anna Rowlands is the Founding Chair of the Centre for Catholic Social Thought and Practice. She teaches Political Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Durham and is Deputy Director of the Centre for Catholic Studies there. She works with a range of academic and practitioner groups, aiming to bring theory and practice together for purposes of social change and social conservation. She writes widely on Catholic social teaching, aspects of British and European political cultures and theology and the political including her main research focus at present - theological ethics and migration. She is author of the forthcoming book 'Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching for Dark Times' and editor of ‘Political Theology: A Reader’ (Bloomsbury, 2016).
Dr Sara Silvestri
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Dr Sara Silvestri is Senior Lecturer in the International Politics Department at City, University of London. She is also an Affiliated Lecturer at POLIS (University of Cambridge) and a bye-fellow of St Edmund’s college, where she is Director of Research at the Von Hügel Institute for Critical Catholic Inquiry. Sara is an interdisciplinary social scientist interested in the role of political theologies and faith-based actors in global politics, as well as related issues, at the intersection of migration, multiculturalism, and security. While a large part of her research has focused on the relevance of faith in EU public policy as well as on Muslim identities and political mobilisation, her latest projects (partly funded by the Plater Trust) examine the contribution of the Christian churches and charities to migration policy and to addressing migrants’ needs in the UK and in Europe. Prior to that she was involved in collaborative projects on The Role of Religion in Conflict and Peacebuilding (British Academy 2015), Religion and Diplomacy (Brookings 2015), and comparing representations of Irish and Muslim communities in Britain (ESRC-funded 2008-10) Sara holds a PhD and an MPhil from Cambridge University, where she also completed her ESRC-Postdoctoral Fellowship. She previously earned a Laurea degree from La Sapienza University (Rome), studied EU migration policies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, trained in church-state relations as a Marie Curie Fellow at the Institut Catholique in Paris, and worked as a journalist for Vatican Radio and other print Christian media. She has also taught at the Muslim College in Cambridge and at Bristol University. Dr Silvestri developed strong ties with the policy world while working on the intercultural dialogue dossier in President Prodi’s Cabinet at the European Commission in 2001-2 and subsequently as an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, by leading the Islam in Europe programme for the Brussels’ think tank European Policy Centre (2007-08), as an advisory board member of the Anna Lindh Foundation for Intercultural Dialogue (Alexandria, Egypt), and as a “global expert” of the UN Alliance of Civilisations. During 2013-14 she collaborated with the UNFPA, the Foreign Office, DfID and various US partners on policy initiatives reflecting on the role of religion in development and foreign policy. A frequent international media commentator and guest speaker at prestigious institutions, Dr Silvestri has advised and provided training for a range of Church bodies, government agencies, EU institutions, and NGOs including: the UK Home Office, FCO, BIS, the German Ministry of Migration, the European Commission, the Canadian Federal Government, the UK Youth Justice Board, the Anglican Diocese of Wells, Caritas Internationalis, the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People, and the Methodist Church.
Dr Richard Finn
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Dr Richard Finn OP is Director of the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice at Blackfriars Hall in the University of Oxford, where he is a member of the faculties of Theology and Classics. The author of Almsgiving in the Late Roman Empire (Oxford 2006) and Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge, 2009), he was recently one of two curators of the virtual exhibition, ‘A Pipeline from Heaven: 800 Years of Dominican Books’, and is currently beginning research on the history of the English Dominicans. As part of this project he will be examining the friars’ role in forming cooperatives on Grenada, and in the development of distributism.
Dr Ashley Beck
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Dr Ashley Beck is Assistant Priest of Beckenham in the Archdiocese of Southwark and Programme Director in Pastoral Ministry at St Mary’s University, Twickenham; he is also responsible for the academic formation of permanent deacons in most of the dioceses of southern England and Wales. At St Mary’s he teaches Catholic Social teaching as part of modules in the Foundation degree in Pastoral Ministry, the MA degree in Theology and the Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies; within St Mary’s he is also a member of the Aquinas Centre for Educational Research and an affiliate of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society . He has published a large number of articles and monographs relating to Catholic Social teaching and his PhD dissertation was entitled Catholic Social Teaching in the Contemporary Church - towards a Radical and Prophetic Methodology. He represents the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales on the Management Committee of Faith in Europe, a research body linked to Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. At present he is leading a project at St Mary’s to set up a new MA degree in Catholic Social Teaching from 2017.
Raymond Friel OBE
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Raymond has worked in Catholic settings since 1990, mostly in state secondary education, as a teacher of English, head of department, headteacher, National Leader of Education, General Secretary of the Catholic Independent Schools Conference, and CEO of two multi academy trusts. He is currently CEO of Caritas Social Action Network, the agency of the bishops’ conference dedicated to tackling poverty and enhancing social mission capacity in England and Wales. He has written a number of books on education and Catholic life, including How to Survive in Leadership in a Catholic School and Gospel Values for Catholic Schools (both from Redemptorist Publications). His most recent publication is Formation of the Heart: the why and how of being a Catholic today (also from Redemptorist Publications). He was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours List for services to education. He lives in Somerset with his wife Janet, who is an artist and maker. They have three sons.
Nick Townsend
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Nicholas Townsend has worked in the private sector, in Parliament, and for many years in teaching Christian ethics and political theology, including at Sarum College, Salisbury, and St Augustine’s College of Theology, Canterbury. He has written extensively on Catholic Social Teaching for the VPlater Project based at Newman University, Birmingham. He is reviews editor for Studies in Christian Ethics. His main interests include Christian understandings of the role of government.
Linda Jones
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Linda Jones is Head of Theology at CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. She is on the Board of Grassroots, an ecumenical network committed to interfaith dialogue, and is Chair of Trustees of Phoenix Bereavement Support, a child bereavement charity. She is interested in how theology, creativity and imagination can best contribute towards bringing about positive change in favour of the poorest and most disadvantaged people amongst us.
Clifford Longley
Awaiting Biography