Rev Dr Robert Ombres OP

Lector

Fr Robert was born in 1948 in Naples (Italy), and obtained the LL.B. from Bristol University, the LL.M. from London University, and was called to the Bar (Inner Temple). Having become a Dominican friar he studied philosophy and theology (STL) at the Oxford Study House, and then canon law (licence and doctorate) at the Pontifical University of St Thomas (Rome). He was elected Prior of both the Cambridge and Oxford priories. Having served as novice master, he was called to Rome to be the Procurator General of his Order (2004-2011).

He was a member of the Theology Faculty of Oxford University, and currently teaches moral theology and canon law at Blackfriars, and is Raymond of Penyafort Fellow of Blackfriars Hall. He also teaches canon law at the Pontifical University of St Thomas in Rome. He is reviews editor of New Blackfriars and on the editorial boards of the periodicals Angelicum, Law & Justice and Ecclesiastical Law Journal. He has published widely.

Select Publications:

2021 ‘Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Divine Law’, Law & Justice;
2021 ‘RC Canon Law’ (A. McGrath. co-author) in N.Doe (ed.), Church Laws and Ecumenism;
2019  ‘The Legitimate Expectation of Diocesan Clerics’, Law & Justice;
2016  ‘Prefazione’ in A Codeluppi, Sede Impedita;
2016  ‘Justice and Mercy’ in M.Hill et al, The Confluence of Law and Religion (Cambridge);
2014  ‘The Synod of Bishops’, Ecclesiastical Law Journal, 306-318;
2012  ‘Canon Law and Theology’, Ecclesiastical Law Journal, 164-194;
2008  ‘L’Autorità Religiosa nei Frati Predicatori’, Angelicum, 947-963;
2005  ‘God, Angels and Us’, New Blackfriars, 48-61;
2002  ‘La Notion d’Église Nationale – L’Église Catholique Romaine’, L’Année Canonique, 39-52;
2001  ‘Reflections on c.868§2 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Ius Ecclesiae, 461-474;
1998  English Canon Law (Cardiff), co-edited with N. Doe and M. Hill;
1997  ‘David Jones and the Liturgy’, The Chesterton Review, 113-125;
1995  ‘The Catholic Perspective on the Family’ in D.Riches, The Civilization of Love (Oxford), 13-25;
1990  ‘The Dominicans in Cambridge 1238-1538’ (P. Zutshi, co-author), Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 313-373;
1989  ‘Faith, Doctrine and Roman Catholic Canon Law’, Ecclesiastical Law Journal, 33-41;
1984  ‘Strikes: Reformulating Catholic Thinking in Britain’,  New Blackfriars, 120-123;
1984  ‘Latins & Greeks in Debate over Purgatory 1230-1439’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 1-14;
1981  ‘The Doctrine of Purgatory According to St Thomas Aquinas’, Downside Review, 279-287;
1978  The Theology of Purgatory (Dublin).

Email: robert.ombres@english.op.org