I see theological education as an interactive exchange between different sources of Wisdom, practical spheres of life and each other as believers, doubters and seekers. In the Catholic tradition religious truth is expressed philosophically. So, for me, philosophy serves as a base for the shared, dialogical and common-good oriented faith inquiry. I subscribe to the view of Emmanuel Levinas, a Jewish philosopher, that we relate to God by being moral. Studying ‘morality’ and its relationship to religion has been my passion for over 30 years. And, whilst ethics is my disciplinary home (I came to it via theology), theology has been providing me with the language and framework for thinking about the God-dimension of human living and the roots of ethics.
At Margaret Beaufort Institute, apart from her role as Principal, Anna convenes the MA in Contemporary Ethics and teaches ‘Foundations of Morality’, ‘Moral Development, Reasoning and Decision Making’ and ‘Ethics in Professional Context’. Her subject area is ethics and key interests include virtue ethics, the relationship between morality and theistic spirituality, theological and global ethics. Her current research is on ethical leadership. It is enabled by a two-year grant from the Laing Family Trusts Foundation. Her project explores obstacles to ethical leadership. It aims to develop ways of supporting leaders (especially in preventing burnout), fostering compassionate leadership culture and developing leadership accompaniment. In 2020 Anna founded the Centre for Ecclesial Ethics (https://www.mbit.cam.ac.uk/centre-for-ecclesial-ethics/) which aims to empower church leaders at all levels to create a better (synodal) Church.
Previous roles
- Head of Pastoral and Social Studies Department, Senior Lecturer in Ethics/Christian Ethics, Heythrop College, University of London
- Core Lecturer in Moral Theology, Missionary Institute London, Middlesex University
- Visiting Lecturer in ‘Foundations in Philosophy and Moral Theology’ (Permanent Diaconate Formation Programme, St Mary’s University, Twickenham)
- Co-founder and Co-editor of Bloomsbury Studies in Global Ethics
- Associate Editor of European Journal for Philosophy of Religion
- International Editor of Forum Philosophicum
Current roles
- Member of the Executive Board of the Cambridge Theological Federation
- Member of the Editorial Board of Studia Bobolanum (Collegium Bobolanum, Warsaw, Poland)
- English Language Editor of Spoleczenstwo I Rodzina (Society and Family, John Paul II Catholic University, Lublin, Poland)
Selected Publications
- ‘Leadership: Spiritual, Ethical, or Both?’, Stan Rzeczy [State of Affairs – a journal published by the Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw] – forthcoming in 2024
- ‘Why bother with theology? Reflections on the state and purpose of theological education today’ Pearl Anniversary Journal (2023), pp.72-75 https://www.mbit.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Journal-edited-compressed.pdf )
- ‘From Moral Theology to Ecclesial Ethics’, Studia Nauk Teologicznych [Theological Studies – Journal of the Polish Academy of Science], 15(2020), 133-152
- ‘Relationality and Attunement in Teaching Christian Ethics’, Studies in Christian Ethics 32(2019), 1-6
- ‘Ecclesial Ethics – A Way Forward? Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church Forum, 29 September 2019.
- ‘Education for Truth in a Climate of Fake News: Conversation with Thomas Aquinas, Bernard Williams, Wolfgang Künne and Pope Francis’, Louvain Studies 42 (2019), 3–25.
- ‘The Future of Catholic Theological Ethics’, guest editor of the special issue of Religions, January 2018,
- ‘The Eye of Love’: Philosophy, Theology and the Jesuit Tradition (co-ed. with Peter Gallagher SJ and Michael Kirwan SJ), Bloomsbury 2017
- ‘Solidarity and Moral Imagination in David Greig’s The Events: Ethics in Conversation with Performance’. Contemporary Theatre Review 26(2016) [Issue on David Greig: Dramaturgies of Encounter and Engagement] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2015.1121144
- ‘The Maxim of the Moon’ and the Lived Experience of Religious Belief: An Ethical Revision of Thornhill-Miller’s and Millican’s Second Order Religion. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 8 (2016), 239–250
- ’Moral Imagination and the Art of Solidarity’ in Janusz Salamon (ed.), in Solidarity Beyond Borders: Ethics in a Globalising World (Bloomsbury Studies in Global Ethics), London: Bloomsbury 2015, pp 47–66
- From ‘Lacking’ to ‘Perfecting’ Humanity: Soteriology in Philosophy. Studia Bobolanum 4 (2015), p. 199–210