Bridgid Smith
Bridgid hails from Minnesota in the US and is reading for an MSt in Modern Theology. Her theological interests lie in systematics, ecclesiology, sacramentality, and experiences of God’s grace in our lives. Outside of the academy, Bridgid loves being outside, playing sports, playing piano, and cooking good food. Her most recent artistic hobby is learning calligraphy but she enjoys drawing, painting, and embroidery as well.
Before coming to Oxford, Bridgid studied theology at the University of Notre Dame and worked in various roles, including Director of Faith Formation at a rural Catholic parish, middle school theology teacher, and full-time nanny.
Carmen Denia
Carmen is from the Philippines but has spent the past fifteen years overseas. Before joining Campion Hall, she helmed a small seminary library in Singapore, having earned a BA (Honours) in Literature at Yale-NUS College and an MA in Religion and the Arts at Yale University. Carmen is now pursuing an MSc in Digital Scholarship in order to better help students of the humanities—academics and the general public alike—preserve and access the resources they need for lifelong intellectual formation and spiritual flourishing.
Outside of librarianship, she enjoys reading about theology and the arts from the Middle Ages to the present day, Visitandine spirituality and the Inklings, as well as dancing flamenco and sewing.
Emma Barnes
Emma is a recent graduate of the MPhil in Judaism and Christianity in the Graeco-Roman World at Oxford. Born and raised in the US state of Connecticut, she studied at the University of Connecticut for Bachelor’s degrees in History and German, with concentrations in Religion, Classics, and Judaic Studies, before moving to Oxford to pursue her interests in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. She also spent one year studying Political Science and German at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg.
Emma is currently reading for a DPhil in Theology and Religion, with an interest in exploring the form, content, and philosophical underpinnings of early Christian catechesis and teaching of biblical texts, particularly among children and young people.
Raymond Davern
Raymond is reading for a DPhil, looking at the dating of the canonical Gospels with particular reference to the writings of the Early Church Fathers and the lost euangelion of Marcion from Pontus in Asia Minor.
His background is in law, having read for a BA in Jurisprudence at Balliol in the mid-eighties and, over the last three decades, having both practised as a barrister (at the English Bar, as well as in various British Overseas Territories) and taught jurisprudence and the law of trusts (at King’s College London and Notre Dame, London programme). A recent foray into Biblical Studies, by way of an MA in Religion at King’s College London (undertaken part-time while working 2019-2021), awakened a strongly linguistic interest in the texts and the manner of their composition.
After people, his main interests in life are music (a Catholic taste ironically dominated by devotion to Bach) and language.
Felipe Cinelli Barbosa
Felipe is a Catholic priest for the Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. Before embracing his priestly vocation, he pursued a degree in electrical engineering at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), state of São Paulo. After graduating in 2012, he worked at a major engineering company in Rio. In 2014, he entered Rio’s Catholic seminary, where he studied philosophy (BA) and theology (STB), which were offered in association with the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio.
His dissertations in philosophy and theology addressed the relationship between epistemology and metaphysics, and the meaning of the terms daimon and daimonion in the Bible, respectively. After his diaconal ordination on December 11th 2021, he assumed pastoral duties at the parish Nossa Senhora Aparecida (Our Lady of Aparecida), in the neighbourhood of Ilha do Governador. He was ordained priest on May 7th 2022 and was appointed vicar of the same parish.
At Oxford, Felipe wants to explore the relationship between current methods of biblical interpretation and data analysis methods in his MPhil in Theology (New Testament). He is also interested in the relationship between biblical exegesis and systematics (and between epistemology and metaphysics in parallel), and biblical angelology and demonology.
Julian Schuler
Julian comes to Campion Hall as a visiting doctoral student for Michaelmas 2022.
He was born in 1994 in Waiblingen near Stuttgart in the south-west of Germany, and raised in a village close to a small medieval town called Rottweil – the home of the infamous dog. After his time at school, he went to study Theology and Philosophy at the University of Tübingen, staying at a seminary college which was a vibrant community of seminarians and other students. Upon the completion of his first two years of study in Tübingen, he spent a wonderful year at the Gregorian University and the Angelicum in Rome. He then continued his studies at Tübingen, finishing with a thesis on Aquinas on analogy after two years of further study. Before beginning his doctorate, it was his wish to deepen his knowledge about philosophical theology, and so he chose to do an MPhil in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. His doctorate looks at the reception and interpretation of Augustine in Erich Przywara’s works.
Bede Grey
Bede is a monk of Ealing Abbey in west London. Last year, he made his Solemn Profession (also called final vows) and has now been in the monastery for six years. Although he lives in Campion during term-time, he studies at Blackfriars Studium, which offers seminary training for ordinands from religious orders. This year, he starts the fourth of six years, leading to ordination to the priesthood.
Immediately before joining the monastery, he worked for a few years for the Jesuits in London, where he was a part-time administrator for what is now called the London Jesuit Centre. At the same time, he provided IT support for a number of clients.
His Bachelor’s degree is in Chemistry and he worked as a chemistry teacher for a number of years, later switching to teaching IT. After several years of teaching in secondary schools around London and the Home Counties, he opted for a change in his life, culminating in his joining the monastery.
Header photo: by Bede Grey
