Events

Members of the Ampleforth Society are warmly invited to attend the next Virtual St Laurence Ethics Forum, taking place at 7:00pm (GMT) on Thursday 25th March. 

The focus of this forum will be Modern Slavery and Human Rights, the problem in the UK and about what the church is doing in response. Chair, Patrick Tolhurst (C99), will be joined by Abbot Robert Igo, Simon John (W63) and Cecilia Taylor-Camara who will be discussing this subject in a Christian context and giving people some insight to the views of Pope Francis and why he might feel the way he does, and how Christians can be ethical consumers, as we are bidden by His Holiness.

The event will take place via Microsoft Teams and will conclude with a Q&A. Please note that pre-registration is essential. 

To register for the forum, please complete the form at the bottom of this page. 

If you have any queries, please contact societymail@ampleforth.org.uk. To watch the recordings of our previous Virtual SLEFs, please visit Ampleforth Global. 

Bios of the panellists can be found below:

Abbot Robert Igo was elected the ninth Abbot of Ampleforth in January 2021. Abbot Robert was born and educated in Manchester and worked at Manchester Royal Infirmary as a Student Nurse for three years in the 1970s. He was ordained priest in the Anglican Church in 1980 and served in parishes in Sunderland and Hartlepool. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1987 and joined the monastic community at Ampleforth in August 1988. He was ordained a Catholic priest on 27 June 1993 and three years later joined a small group of Ampleforth monks in Zimbabwe, at the monastic foundation established by the Ampleforth community in 1996, the Monastery of Christ the Word in Macheke. Since 2005 he has been Prior at the Monastery of Christ the Word.

Simon John (W63) studied law and qualified as a solicitor in 1969. Simon co-founded his own law firm in 1973. He specialised in representing children and adults who had suffered catastrophic neurological injury. Simon was a fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, a senior fellow of Association Personal Injury Lawyers and is a member Emeritus of Forum Of Complex Injury Solicitors. He has a certificate in human rights law from Bristol University. He has been a lifelong member of Amnesty International and is currently chair of a local Amnesty Group. He is also chair of a charity for young people with Multiple Sclerosis in the UK.  Simon is the secretary of the Rotary Action Group Against Slavery. He believes slavery can and will be largely brought to an end but only after a sustained effort from civic society including members of faith groups.

Cecilia Taylor-Camara was the Senior Policy Adviser in the Office for Migration Policy at the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales from 2009 - 2020. She was the strategic lead on migration, human trafficking and racial justice. She was the key advisor on migration to the Bishops Conference and assisted in developing policy and strategy in this area. A significant part of her brief was the work on combating human trafficking and raising awareness of this heinous crime at local, national and international levels. She organised several high-level international conferences on Combating Human Trafficking, including one at the Vatican, attended by Pope Francis. She was the key representative of the Bishops’ Conference with Central and Local Government, as well as with international organisations and agencies. Her work focused on tackling the root causes of social exclusion, particularly the stigmatization of migrants. She has spoken widely on issues of migration and policy and has appeared before Parliamentary Committees and academic institutions.  Cecilia has worked extensively for the elimination of poverty and in the promotion of equalities and racial justice, advocating for the rights of the marginalised and disadvantaged, especially women and refugees at various levels both in UK and Sierra Leone. She has wide ranging experience in the public, private, voluntary and international development sectors.