021 :
07 Feb 2012

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 12... Vynette Holliday returns today to add a few more thoughts to this extended mosaic she's slowly been trying to unravel concerning the origin of our beliefs in the primacies of St Peter and the subsequent popes. Vynette's analysis is a more detailed academic analysis than many we publish here on Catholica but stick with it and we'll see where this all ends up. [more]

020 :
28 Nov 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 11... Reading Vynette Holliday's commentaries as she builds her case to question the Primacy Question one might wonder if the blokes who wrote down the scripture all those millennia ago ever wondered about the confusion it might be causing two thsouand years down the track, or if they might have ever wondered if it would even be still talked about two thousand years down the track? Perhaps you might also wonder if any women played a part in writing any of the New Testament and, if not, why not? Today's essay continues the exploration of the First Epistle of Peter and includes an interesting discussion on what are called the "General Epistles" and how they tend to get downplayed against the "Epistles of St Paul". [more]

019 :
17 Oct 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 10... After a lengthy absence caused by the pressure of other commitments, Vynette Holliday returns today with her lengthy investigation of the origin of the belief that the Apostle Peter was in Rome or headed the Church in Rome. In the past in our introductions we have compared Vynette to Sherlock Holmes. After reading today's demolition of the myths surrounding the First Epistle of Peter the reader might be left wondering if a better comparison might be with the stars of the currently popular television series, Mythbusters? [more]

018 :
08 Aug 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 9... Vynette Holliday continues to her Sherlock Holmes' style investigation of where the Apostle Peter disappeared to after the death of Jesus. From the evidence she assembles today from a variety of sources she concludes that "most reasonable answer to this question is that Peter would likely have travelled eastwards to the regions of Babylon on the Mesopotamian plain, where the great majority of these "lost sheep of the House of Israel" lived.". [more]

017 :
11 July 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 8... Our indefatigable scholar and commentator, Vynette Holliday, is still on her lengthy exploration today of where the Apostle Peter disappeared to after the death of Jesus. Was he in living it up in Rome or engaged in other business in other parts of the Jewish world, finding the "lost sheep of the House of Israel"? Today's commentary is essentially a lengthy look at what happened to the Jewish people after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in 70CE. [more]

016 :
16 May 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 7... Readers of Catholica, and in particular those who've been following the commentaries from Vynette Holliday and others, will probably have noted the recent emphasis placed on the question of Apostolic Succession and Petrine Primacy in the statements concerning Bishop Morris's forced retirement. Vynette's commentaries began long before any of us expected the Bishop Morris' story to erupt in the way it did and for the question of the Petrine Succession to be raised as a significant point of justification for the way in which Bishop Morris was treated. Today's commentary takes us a little further forward in Vynette's questioning of this belief. [more]

015 :
04 Apr 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 6... Luckily this is "independent Catholic media" and we're not subject to any Nihil Obstats and Imprimaturs because today's commentary from Vynette Holliday challenges some very sacred Catholic cows. Buckle up, put on your crash helmet, and stand by for the reactions. Wouldn't it be just wonderful — and a sign of a vibrant Church again — if an article like this could bring learned scholars defending the institutional position on a controversial issue into the public square to have a real conversation about these matters — to establish "the real truth" about foundational premises like the ones Vynette puts up for consideration. [more]

014 :
14 Mar 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 5... In the fifth part of her detective novel style investigation of the whereabouts of St Peter, Vynette Holliday turns her focus today to his whereabouts from the time of the Jerusalem Council (around 50CE) up until 62CE. [more]

013 :
28 Feb 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 4... Vynette's series grows more and more like an Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes detective puzzle as it proceeds. In today's instalment the chief objective is to try and establish the whereabouts of St Peter from around the time of the first Pentecost up until the time of his death in 67AD. [more]

012 :
14 Feb 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 3... This series from Vynette Holliday grows more fascinating with each instalment — particularly for those who followed closely the previous explorations of this general territory that Ian Elmer and Tom Lee led us through in their commentaries. Today's essay from Vynette explores in an interesting way the different pictures Peter and Paul had in their minds of both "authority" (who they thought they answered to) and to whom their work or mission was to be directed to. [more]

011 :
07 Feb 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 2... In the second commentary in this series examining the Primacy claims within the Catholic tradition Vynette Holliday lays out a raft of authoritative quotations where the questions of Primacy have been laid out. What are we Catholics actually taught by the authoritative sources and what are the popularly held myths that have grown up around the notions of the Primacy of Peter and the primacy of his successors? [more]

010 :
25 Jan 2011

Questioning the understanding of Papal Primacy Part 1... Many of the articles of faith we Catholics were brought up to believe seem to have been planted in us as deeply as our DNA. Many we have accepted without any questioning whatsoever. They seem as though they were cast in stone and created at the foundation of time. In this new series Vynette Holliday investigates the historical record, the scriptural references, and authoritative teachings to explore where the ideas of Papal Primacy came from. What are Catholics actually taught by the authoritive sources and what are the popularly held myths that have grown up around the notions of the Primacy of Peter and the primacy of his successors? [more]

009 :
13 Dec 2010

Questioning the Virgin Birth Part 6... After a lengthy absence following the death of her own mother, Vynette Holliday returns today to continue her examination of the Gospel of Luke and its implications for the genealogy of Jesus and his mother Mary and the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth. Fasten your seatbelts for this one and lock the kids away so that can't read it! [more]

008 :
27 Sep 2010

Questioning the Virgin Birth Part 5... Vynette Holliday continues her examination of the Gospel of Luke through the Hebrew perspective she argues was the one the original chroniclers of the story were using. The focus of today's commentary is largely centred on the lines in Luke's Gospel describing the Annunciation. [more]

007 :
13 Sep 2010

Questioning the Virgin Birth Part 4... Today's commentary from Vynette Holliday is not for the faint-hearted and those seeking dogmatic certitude. It is for the searcher seeking to better understand culture in which, or out of which, Christian and Jewish Scripture was written. For those who have been listening to other media in Australia over the weekend, it fits with the sort of enquiry undertaken in the television series screened on SBS Television in the peak 7.30pm timeslot on Sunday night looking at the origins of the Old Testament and the Israelite people, or the excellent discussion later on Sunday night with John Cleary on ABC Radio with John Dominic Crossan. In today's commentary — the first of two parts — Vynette is arguing the Gospel of Luke has been misinterpreted on this question of the Virgin Birth. [more]

006 :
30 Aug 2010

Questioning the Virgin Birth Part 3... Vynette Holliday today continues her challenging argument that the Gospel of Matthew when read through its original Jewish meaning does not provide a justification for the virginal birth of Jesus. This is the second of two parts examining the Gospel of Matthew in a wider series arguing that in the Jewish religious setting in which Jesus moved he would not have been viewed as divine or viewed himself as divine. [more]

005 :
16 Aug 2010

Questioning the Virgin Birth Part 2... Essentially what Vynette Holliday invites us to do in today's commentary is place ourselves in the mind of a Jewish person at the time of Jesus and view how this man was viewed by his followers and those who recorded his story. This is the first of two parts examining the Gospel of Matthew. [more]

004 :
09 Aug 2010

Questioning the Virgin Birth Part 1... Did Jesus have a self-understanding of himself as being "born of a virgin"? What was his understanding of the passages from Isaiah to which his birth was subsequently linked by Jewish and Christian scholars and religious leaders? In today's commentary — which you will recall is part of a larger series seeking to examine the Jewish mindset of early Christianity and Jesus himself — Vynette Holliday explores the concept of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. [more]

003 :
28 Jul 2010

Jesus the Jew... Vynette Holliday today opens her substantive argument: "If the Church wishes to redeem itself and be included in the people of God, it must rebuild itself on the foundation of the Jewish apostles and the Jewish prophets, with the Jewish Jesus as the chief cornerstone." Does her argument hold weight that Christians down through history have lifted Jesus too far out of his Jewish context? [more]

002 :
19 Jul 2010

The Spirit of Truth... Here's a commentary to scare the pants off both Benedict's "simple people" and the delators as well as some of our foremost biblical scholars and theologians. She'd probably be burned at the stake 400 years ago for even asking questions like this, more so in that she is a woman. They are questions that many readers of Catholica might find fascinating and intriguing though. Like our commentator, many would appreciate responses from scholars in the field she is addressing. The essential question Vynette Holliday addresses today concerns the frame of mind the early leaders of the Church were operating out of. What was the frame of mind in which the New Testament was originally composed: was it an essentially Jewish frame of mind or was it a Greek frame of mind? Vynette asserts it was a Jewish frame of mind, not Greek, and the Greek mindset subsequently imposed on the New Testament has distorted the original message of Jesus. These are massive questions which we hope might lead to an invigorating discussion and exploration of our beliefs. Vynette's title for this essay is "The Spirit of Truth". [more]

001 :
06 Jul 2010

The Jewish God or the Triune God? Vynette Holliday, like many of us drawn to Catholica is a Catholic by birth and her early education but increasingly as she has grown older she has begun to question some of the assumptions on which her beliefs were based. Her particular quest has taken her back to exploring the Jewish roots of Christianity. Some of the conclusions she has come to are confronting and challenging. We are providing Vynette with a platform here to expound her views in the expectation that they will encourage spirited discussion, much thought, and hopefully responses that will significantly expand our thinking on these central issues of Christian belief: the nature of God; and the nature of Jesus and the nature of the relationship he beckons humanity, and each of us, into. [more]