010 :
18 Jul 2012

Feminine, Faithful and Free? Today's commentary is adapted from the address Emmy Silvius gave to the Spirituality in the Pub meeting at Jambaroo in New South Wales on 10th July 2012. She presents a powerful case for women to be more assertive in the Catholic Church. [more]

009 :
14 May 2012

What if Jesus paid a visit to your suburb? It's a familiar question these days: What would Jesus do? Or what if we came across Jesus living in our suburb or community today, how would we react? Emmy Silvius came across a book recently that's been around for a while and has become an unexpected best-seller around the world for its priest-author, Fr Joseph Girzone. Readers who are not familiar with Fr Girzone's books will enjoy this introduction and how this book in particular relates to the questions we started this introduction with. [more]

008 :
12 Apr 2012

Making Sense of Sin and Suffering Today we welcome back as lead commentator the ever-cheerful person of Emmy Silvius. And she puts before us some tough theological questions surrounding the difficult questions of why sin and suffering exist in our world. This is thought-provoking territory and especially so when viewed through the perspective Emmy brings. This dame always brings interesting and unexpected thoughts to her essays. [more]

007 :
16 Feb 2012

Where does Christ fit in Evolution? It could be claimed that all of us are searching — searching for the answers to the meaning of life. Is there anyone in the world who would pretend to have all the answers? A theme common to almost every commentary we've published on Catholica is this theme of a writer searching. Our lead commentator today, Emmy Silvius, tackles the big question: how do we fit our theologies and the Jesus' story into what we're learning about the cosmos and these relatively recent understandings like evolution? This is a commentary where almost ever sentence is electrically charged and scary to hold. Fabulous territory for quiet reflection. [more]

006 :
06 Dec 2011

A new group in the annexe to the official Catholic tent... Is this another St Mary's in Exile community starting up in another Australian capital city? Emmy Silvius attended the inaugural Eucharist celebrated by former incardinated priest, Greg Reynolds in Melbourne for a group that has labelled themselves "Inclusive Catholics". This commentary sits comfortably with our series of "Exit Stories" we've been running on Tuesdays and also fits with recent discussion on our forum of people seeking to establish new communities in physical space. [more]

005 :
26 Sep 2011

Meeting an inspiring Catholic Woman Bishop... Emmy Silvius recently had the pleasure of meeting Bishop Patricia Fresen during her visit to Melbourne. She came away from the meeting impressed and inspired and sent us this short essay which she entitled "For the Love of My Church". [more]

004 :
08 Jul 2011

Lay Ecclesial Ministry... For a long time, centuries in fact, the role of the laity in the Church has been presented to us as a role of docility and obedience. The Second Vatican Council overturned that long-accepted picture and argued that the laity have rights and responsibilities. In today's lead commentary Emmy Silvius explores some of our rights and responsibilities in lay ecclesial ministry. [more]

003 :
02 Apr 2011

Rethinking our relationship with God, our neighbours and our world: Creation Spirituality... Emmy Silvius sent this commentary to me earlier last week before the controversy surrounding American sister and theologian, Elizabeth A. Johnson hit the news with John L Allen's piece in NCR [SEE: "U.S. bishops blast book by feminist theologian"]. It's more serendipity or God-incidence as the spirituality and theology of Sr Elizabeth features heavily in this commentary from Emmy. People are no longer listening to the bishops and the old patriarchal line anymore. Emmy Silvius explores some of the emerging concerns driving the search for a new way of understanding our relationship with God, with our fellow human beings and with our environment and cosmos. [more]

002 :
04 Mar 2011

"Is Our Institutional Church Unjust?" What a way to end this week. On Tuesday we blew all of our previous readership figures right out of the water with a close to 300% increase in unique visitors. There's a God-incidence in all this I tell ya — I honestly didn't plan any of this. I just sit here and deal with whatever comes in my door or via my email inbox. This commentary today by Emmy Silvius is really powerful. I notice from a Google scan that Emmy has been around for a while — for example she's written previously for Online Opinion. I think today though, after you've read this commentary which, perhaps somewhat timidly at least compared to the content she entitled "Is Our Institutional Church Unjust?" I think we might be introducing to you a powerful new voice for women. Congratulations, Emmy. This is powerful stuff and I anticipate it will find a massive and very receptive readership. ...Editor [more]

001 :
25 Feb 2011

Spirituality vs Religion... Now here is a new voice to Catholica exploring a topic that we often visit in our community from a fresh perspective. Emmy Silvius is a lay theologian working in the social services area and has a passion for social justice. From a previous discussion on Catholica Emmy found a pdf document of an address given by Dr David Tacey in 2003 to a group of Religious Educators arguing that Spirituality and Religion are becoming disconnected and they need to be reconnected. (Emmy provides a link to that in her footnotes and David Tacey's paper is also worth revisiting). What Emmy Silvius is essentially arguing in her commentary is how religion and spirituality might be reconnected. Spirituality is not just a selfish, individualistic pursuit, it has a community aspect. As she says in her opening line: "Spirituality is about connecting from the heart"! [more]