Bishop-elect William F. Medley speaks at a Dec. 15, 2009 press conference at Brescia University in Owensboro, the day that he was officially appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to be the fourth bishop of Owensboro. FILE PHOTO

BY ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC

For incoming president of Brescia University, “this place is deeply a part of my faith journey,” even down to his coming into full communion with the Catholic Church at the school’s chapel.

“As with so many people, your faith journey starts with the people who came before you,” said Madison Silvert in a Jan. 8, 2025, interview with The Western Kentucky Catholic.

On Dec. 16, 2024, Brescia University announced that Silvert had been named the next president, after current president Fr. Larry Hostetter shared with the school’s board of directors that he wished to complete his contract at the end of May 2025. According to a press release from Brescia, Silvert will begin his role prior to the end of the academic year and work in tandem with Fr. Hostetter until May 31.

Silvert was born and raised in Owensboro. He told the WKC that his grandfather was Jewish and had converted to Christianity, and Silvert’s father always reminded the family that their faith came from the Jewish tradition.

“I grew up at First Baptist Church in Owensboro,” said Silvert, adding that he was baptized there at nine years old. When he was a senior in high school, he committed himself to fulltime ministry before the whole church community.

“I thought I’d major in theology and go to seminary,” he said. But early in his college career Silvert found himself compelled by economics, which prompted existential questions about his prior promise to ministry.

When he was home from college, Silvert met with his former Sunday school teacher-turned mentor, Sanford Peyton, to discuss the dilemma.

Peyton told Silvert, “You know, Madison, no matter what you do, make it your ministry.”

From that point, Silvert shifted his focus to understanding the “why” of what he does.

In college he met his wife, Amy, who is Catholic. They dated for five years and married when he was in law school.

For several years, they attended his Baptist service and her Catholic Mass every Sunday. But by the time their second child was born, it had become difficult to take two small children to two churches in one day.

Keeping in mind the priorities of his family life, Silvert told his wife, “It’s not a sin for me to miss my service, but it is for you to miss yours,” deciding together to start going to just Mass on Sundays.

The Silvert family became involved with their parish – St. Pius X in Owensboro – such as participating in the Families in Faith program. With his wife volunteering as a religious education teacher, Silvert reflected on how he could help adults in the parish grow in their faith as the children were.

He ended up starting an adult faith formation program that included watching Bishop Robert Barron’s “Catholicism” video series – “even though I wasn’t Catholic,” said Silvert.

He did, however, continue learning more about the Catholic Church by studying, reading books and listening to podcasts. Silvert said he struggled specifically with the idea of transubstantiation, the Catholic Church’s term for Jesus’s body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist existing under the appearances of bread and wine.

Fortunately, this was addressed in the Catholicism series. In the series, Bishop Barron explained that if one can believe in God, and that God created the entire universe, there is no reason why God could not also exist under what looked like bread and wine.

“If you can believe one, why can’t you believe the other?” said Silvert. “That’s not that much of a leap, really. Once I not only agreed but fundamentally agreed, then I was ready.”

Silvert had gotten to know Fr. Larry Hostetter through the Greater Owensboro Economic Development Corporation around the time Fr. Hostetter became president of Brescia.

When they got coffee together one day, Silvert told his priest friend, “I’m ready.’”

About eight years ago this Mother’s Day, Madison came into full communion with the Catholic Church in Brescia’s chapel.

“Not only do I feel that I’m practicing my faith as I was created to, but I’m coming into the fulfillment of when I was 18 years old, standing before my church,” he told the WKC.

Looking toward his presidency that begins June 1, Silvert said that leading Brescia “will always be a ministry – whether the president is a religious or a layperson.”

That, and making sure “the Ursuline Sisters tradition that not only started this school but continues to this day, remains strong,” he said.

Originally printed in the February 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.