Science & Faith Symposiums Event

Nicholas Breakspear Catholic School would like to extend a warm invitation to join us for the inaugural event of our NBS Science and Faith Symposiums community evenings on Monday, November 24th (17:00-19:10pm).

Tickets are FREE and can be booked here

Topic

- An introduction to the relationship between science, technology and faith.

- Confirmed Speaker: Fr Toby Lees OP

Fr Toby was born in London, and studied law at Cambridge, going on to be a solicitor for seven years with a city law firm. Whilst working, he started studying Philosophy and the Catholic Tradition at Maryvale Institute, and he knew things were getting serious when he started playing fewer matches for Millwall Rugby Club, so that he could try and get his philosophy essays submitted on time. This didn’t always happen. It was also at Maryvale that he first came across the Dominicans, meeting one Sister and a couple of Friars, and much to his surprise began to think he would like to become one too.

In 2012, he ditched the city pinstripe for a habit, and entered the novitiate in Cambridge. After a year’s novitiate, he moved to Blackfriars, Oxford, where he studied philosophy for a further year and then theology for three years. After Oxford, he was sent to Rome for three years (the vow of obedience is sometimes very easy to live out), where he lived at the beautiful Basilica of S.Clemente, and studied for a licence in moral theology at the Angelicum. He wrote his thesis on the passion of sorrow and the vice of acedia in St Thomas Aquinas and what his thought might contribute to a contemporary understanding of depression. His particular academic interest is the crossover between moral theology and psychology.

He was ordained a priest six years ago and in that time he has been a hospital chaplain during COVID, an assistant parish priest, a university chaplain at KCL, and for the last three years Priest Director of Radio Maria England, seeking to transform our culture.

He loves all sport, but especially rugby and cricket, and he enjoys running and swimming on Hampstead Heath. He also loves real ale, fiction, and pilgrimages, and is always trying to work out a way to walk yet another Camino to Santiago.

Event Schedule

• Arrivals (from 4.45pm)

• Registration, pre-event survey, and refreshments (5.00 - 5.15pm)

• Welcome and Introduction (5.15 - 5.30pm)

• Fr Toby Lees OP's talk for families, students, priests (5.30 - 6.10pm)

• Drinks & Nibbles (6.10 - 6.30pm)

• Roundtable discussions and activities (6.30 - 7pm)

• Final remarks (7.00 - 7.10pm)