Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE For Michael Kenny Oregon, Wis. To the Editors: A warm thank-you to Dolores Leckey for her tribute to Michael Kenny, bishop of Juneau, Alaska ["A Bishop Who Cooked," April 7]. As...
...Seldom have I heard a poor sermon by a member of the Society, perhaps because they fulfill what Burke calls the primary requirement for good preaching: missionary zeal, with its emphasis on evangelization...
...Most priests do not prepare, and it shows...
...If that's true, there could be an ever greater demand for Chant recordings to follow the enormous success of the initial release by the Spanish Benedictines of Santo Domingo de Silos...
...Eventually, however, I became convinced that the substance and style of Protestant Christianity were more appropriate for us...
...To the Editors: Richard Schoenherr's "Numbers Don't Lie" ably discusses some of the uncomfortable facts about the church's supply of clergy, but not all of them...
...I want to keep my job on the staff of a parish where these views would be most unwelcome...
...The demise of parties that served to blend together the "average, potential apathetic, and potential fanatic" on political issues and political action does threaten democracy...
...ALLAN HAWKINS A different future Anderson, Calif...
...They were expressed in terms appropriate for fourth graders, rather than intelligent adults...
...michael kerper...
...And many of them know better, having listened to the women who provided such rich insight during the preparation of the pastoral...
...If, in consequence, the pastor is a poor preacher, he will only be criticized...
...Then how would he find the time...
...Robert a. beezat Chant in the bistros...
...So why can't priests preach...
...It's possible, of course, that "low taxes" and "very rich" mean something different to Mr...
...and, certainly, unencumbered by a written text...
...When they cannot, I suspect the answer is complex and varies with the individual...
...God in his time Or out of time will correct this...
...that need to speak out and be heard...
...He ended his article on a poignant note: "I know that I am one small voice...
...Oddly enough, I suspect that Dennis Burke puts his finger on it when in considering the preaching ministry he contrasts the role of the fisherman with that of the aquarium-keeper...
...Whether they serve in parishes, hospitals, on college campuses, or in the missions, members of the Society consider themselves primarily missionaries...
...Why not...
...and unchangeable tradition, he expressed his belief that "it would be easier to argue that the practice is an expression of a patriarchal era that tended to view females as inferior to males...
...Our current pastor, Father Jeffrey Keyes, exemplifies that and all the other qualities of a good preacher that the article mentions...
...The assembly's attitude, manifested by body language and response, can deaden or energize preaching...
...In a small parish it also means filling the roles of sexton and sacristan...
...And there is no question that "Prepare, prepare, prepare" is his byword...
...This is a structural problem...
...only then can they pray, play, study, or work on sermons...
...I went on to marry that Protestant girl, and, for a while, we attended both Catholic and Protestant services every Sunday...
...Before we can create a new future, we must imagine it...
...Referenda, in contrast, reduce complex issues to one-sentence statements...
...JUDY COLLISON Bishop Kenny's courage Arlington, Va...
...Nevertheless, his assumption should not be passed along without correction...
...EDWARD F. ROGERS Meaning of ministry Arlington, Tex...
...And there was the racial issue...
...The Welsh Anglican priest-poet, R.S...
...the entire community could gather for worship at a common liturgy...
...How refreshing to read support of homilies written out word for word and delivered with fervent urgency from the pulpit...
...Warren than to most of us...
...PEGGY DOHERTY It isn't just time Mundelein, 111...
...I am glad somebody spoke out...
...For it is courage that distinguishes him from the majority of his episcopal colleagues...
...BROTHER) PATRICK HART, O.C.S.O...
...A few, like me, serve in a handful of "Anglican Use" parishes...
...Let the dialogue continue...
...Like most critics of preachers, Burke overlooks the symbiotic relationship between preacher and assembly...
...They may reasonably expect large families, with requirements for homes and adequate incomes to provide for family needs (clothing, groceries, schooling, medical care, etc...
...But they still seemed aimed at adolescents...
...They would be free to be among their people, and to foster the workings of the Holy Spirit both in the parish and in the larger community, so that the work of evangelization could be put back on the front burner...
...Should a candidate be ordained who has demonstrated that he suffers from incurably cold feet, cold heart, and cold tongue when it comes time to ignite the minds and hearts of his hearers with the fire of Jesus' Good News...
...Hearing from "the people" is an important part of representative democracy...
...The result is that there is little matching of the needs of the people with their pastoral leader...
...When I told him so, he remarked that if all his classmates prepared as long as he did, they would preach as well...
...What to do...
...Though I sympathized with him, I couldn't entirely agree with him that "it's all in the preparation...
...Until everybody accepts financial and organizational changes allowing others than the ordained to do much of the managerial work, the quality of preaching will remain mediocre...
...A proliferation of Catholic parishes could come into being...
...Suppose the married priest has to supplement the low salary the Catholic church pays its priests by holding an outside job in order to meet the expenses of supporting a family...
...And here, in my very first experience of a Protestant service, I found the racial issue being addressed explicitly and in biblical and moral terms no real Christian could ignore...
...I've had both experiences...
...The pastor used the biblical text, the parable of the Good Samaritan, as a springboard for exhorting his all-white, conservative, middle-class congregation to practice racial tolerance...
...As the role of political parties erodes, we must find other ways to engage in civic debates that will encourage broad consensus...
...But the sermon issue did highlight one major Catholic failing for me: the woeful inability of the institutional church to communicate even the most fundamental of Jesus' teachings to the laity...
...Not entertainment...
...I remember being struck by the similarities between the Presbyterian order of worship and the Catholic liturgy...
...PATRICK LA BELLE, O.P...
...Three years ago I became pastor of a very small but heady parish in North Berkeley (across the Bay from Burke's Marin...
...But there are a lot of other small voices...
...To the Editors: Dennis Burke's perceptive "Why Priests Can't Preach" pleads for a sequel: "Why Catholic People Can't Listen...
...To begin with, recognize that bad preaching is not an exclusively clerical problem but a disease caused by contemporary culture, which values entertainment so highly and so utterly disdains all forms of oratory...
...In that time the few Catholic services I have attended have not shown signs of significant change...
...Father" will be expected to keep the house in good shape, too...
...Maybe we should have "designated preachers" to lessen the risks that passengers in the pews now encounter...
...A second question: What about money...
...In all my years of regular attendance at Mass, I had heard only three sermons on racial discord, and they were lukewarm...
...Perhaps television has robbed preachers of the ability to present thoughts effectively in words instead of in sound and image bites...
...Catholic preaching badly needs fixing...
...DEACON) MIKE EVANS The ten-day week Berkeley, Calif...
...One must pity the poor bishop who has so few to choose among and a host of vacancies to fill...
...Still, I hope my students take much of Burke's advice to heart: spreading the preparation over the entire week, writing out the homily word for word, meditating on the Bible, reading...
...Rarely do parishioners hear a homily or sermon that has even a beginning, middle, and end...
...And with referenda there is no way to fix responsibility for a bad decision...
...A homilist may indeed be sharing what has set him "on fire," but unless we have ears prepared to hear, he will be flying solo on the "shoulders of grace" as it works to bend our souls to Christ...
...DANIEL S. SIWEK Sermons for grown-ups Wayne, Pa...
...A fascinating prospect that may lead to consideration of an alternative, opening the priesthood to women...
...Yes, Catholic clergy spend too little time on their homilies...
...Burke writes that a homily demands hours of preparation...
...anything...
...using casual, humorous "street talk...
...I wonder whether they actually listen...
...RAYMOND L. McGOVERN The rich get taxed New York, N.Y...
...REV...
...Having said that, I do not believe that mandatory celibacy is the critical issue in the decline in vocations to the priesthood...
...it is my understanding of the priestly ministry to which I was ordained in the Church of England thirty-five years ago, and which was renewed in the Catholic priesthood which was bestowed upon me last year...
...Please withhold my name...
...Too few voices...
...He writes that "the great preacher must have the heart of a missionary...
...To the Editors: Preaching is my passion...
...As it happens, just four days before the date of your issue, the New York Times ran an AP story from which I quote: The taxes of the well-to-do surged 16 percent in 1993...
...I thought I would have more time than ever to prepare homilies but quickly discovered that "pastor" doesn't describe the job accurately...
...The first is government by referenda, the second government via the information superhighway...
...JAMES FINN Threats to democracy Rolling Meadows, 111...
...I don't think that Commonweal will argue very strongly against my observation that the communications inadequacy is also more complex: The church clearly doesn't know how to listen to its people either...
...But they amounted to 24 percent of the $3.7 trillion in individual income reported...
...Already in many dioceses, Catholics face "rolling priestly blackouts" as bishops and priests' personnel boards attempt to fill the growing number of vacancies by transferring their limited personnel around...
...I cannot imagine that many young men are likely to respond to a vocation which seems to entail the administration of mega-size corporation parishes, to be financial bureaucrats, and to be involved in innumerable social action programs...
...The average tax bill for the affluent, those with incomes of more than $100,000, rose by $3,500 to $56,000...
...As one priest put it to me, he did not feel that his priestly vocation was to serve as the entertainment director on a cruise ship...
...She had been badgering me for some time to go to church with her...
...Rest in peace, Michael, rest in peace...
...2) The notion of liturgical integrity cannot be lightly dismissed...
...To the Editors: Congratulations on the excellent article "Chant around the Clock" by Ralph Thibodeau [March 24...
...No longer will there be only the "priests' house," but a compound of one or more homes full of kids with bicycles and other paraphernalia everywhere...
...To the Editors: Several years ago I had a student who I felt was a good apprentice preacher...
...emphasis added...
...If parishes some day are permitted to have married clergy, they must be prepared for complications...
...A question occurs: How can a non-celibate priest give to a wife and children the weekly attention that they deserve and still find all this time for only the sermon...
...On the other hand, Burke's suggested cure for less than ideal preaching-a single preacher at all Sunday Masses-bears costly trade-offs...
...rev...
...It may be of interest to your readers that Sony Classical (which controls the rights of Columbia Records) has recently released a compact disc from an early 1960 recording that the monks of Gethsemani made with Columbia...
...My own pulpit experience has taught me that the most colorful and meticulously prepared homily crumbles into verbal ash when people stare into space, flip through missalettes, yawn, or replay the latest episode of "NYPD Blue" in their mental theaters...
...What is his understanding of the nature of a homily...
...On justice issues, Bishop Kenny would not be stifled by his own miter-or those of others...
...Instead of looking toward the actual world in which God is active in the lives of people and their communities, priests usually talk about abstract religious concepts which remain unconnected to concrete life...
...JAMES R. PANELLA Mow the lawn...
...Sermons aside, Catholic racism and bigotry are, if anything, worse: More Catholics are buying into the Republican ethic and following the lead of the Pat Buchanans rather than the Mario Cuomos and the Ted Kennedys...
...Representative democracy is a deliberative and inclusive process...
...Referenda favor simplistic solutions...
...What an ascetical rectory...
...There is, therefore, some empirical evidence on hand as to the nature and quality of a married priesthood...
...Even if there were not the specter of a massive shortage of (celibate, male) priests facing us in the next five years, the church would need to address its approach to serving the People of God more seriously...
...We mourn Michael Kenny's death even as he must have mourned the deafening silence of his fellow bishops...
...Consider what could occur if we were blessed with a surplus of priestly ministers (both married and female, as well as optionally celibate...
...Year after year we are exposed to mediocre if not lousy preaching...
...As one vacancy is filled, another is created...
...The goal of preaching Petaluma, Calif...
...in bleak moments I think of myself as "the Branch Manager of the North Berkeley Branch of the Diocese of Oakland, a Corporation Sole...
...II, #4...
...and Richard Schoenherr's article "Numbers Don't Lie," I offer these comments...
...In 1968 we joined a social-action-oriented American Baptist church, and have been members ever since...
...Why can't priests preach...
...most serve in regular Latin Rite parishes, institutions, and chaplaincies...
...Elsewhere in the article, Burke says a priest must read, must care for his people, must read the Bible to see the word of God in everything, must care about his preaching...
...Commonweal deserves thanks for running an article on a subject which holds much greater importance for the community of faith than is usually recognized...
...This powerful culture shapes both preacher and assembly, making both parties bored by words and the Word...
...Bad preaching feeds off bad hearing, and vice versa...
...Many of us remember him more for his courage-the courage that Aquinas called the foundation of all virtue...
...But little attention has been paid to this experience, apart from a small survey by the late Joseph Fichter, S.J...
...REV...
...The job description of a branch manager asks rather more than a full-time commitment, without any allowance for prayer, recreation, study, or homily preparation...
...Addressing the claim that the church's practice of not ordaining women is evidence of divine mandate FROM PEW & PULPIT Articles in the issue of April 7 on the Catholic priesthood and on the quality of preaching in Catholic parishes have drawn an unusual volume of letters to the editors...
...Elected officials bear responsibility for their decisions...
...Today, opening a new parish requires a capital campaign in the millions of dollars to construct all the facilities on a scale large enough to serve 2,500 to 4,000 families and as many as 800 to 1,000 people at each Mass...
...Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, movement to this model would alleviate the principal causes of stress, burn-out, and dysfunction among our valued priests...
...It may be worth adding that there are already some married priests serving in the Roman Catholic church, in this country and elsewhere...
...So why does he "rest his case" on how much time that priest had spent preparing...
...Ac a Catholic who felt strongly about civil rights, I was distressed by the unconfronted racism I saw within the church, the lack of leadership by the hierarchy, the neglect of the subject in the pulpit...
...That first Protestant church experience happened more than thirty-four years ago...
...We will get better preachers and fewer dull homilies only when seminary faculties and ordaining bishops do make the charism of preaching an essential part of the vocation to the priesthood...
...The Catholic community has not yet found the secret of providing the pastor time to do the essentials of priestly life...
...The conviction that one is called to bring the gifts of God to the People of God lies at the heart of the priestly vocation...
...if he is a poor branch manager, he will be punished...
...So let's make the charism of preaching a sine qua non for ordination...
...Father Middletown, N.J...
...It is worse than a host being called away from an intimate dinner party...
...In the following piece, Dennis Burke suggests that priests spend much more time in preparing to preach, possibly thinking about their sermons all week, then spending "eight or nine hours" writing out their notes...
...What is his vision of the way things are in our world...
...To the Editors: Your issue on the priesthood was of much interest...
...The reasons for the epidemic of bad preaching run much deeper...
...Vatican II's Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests explicitly declares: "[P]riests, as co-workers with their bishops, have as their primary duty the proclamation of the gospel of God to all" (Ch...
...A selection appears on pages 41 to 45...
...We place implicit and explicit pressure upon our priests to preach in a style a la Vatican II chic: strolling down in front of the altar...
...Most of all, I remember the sermon...
...Long experience, both in the pulpit and in the pews, leads me to two more radical causes for the wretched state of Catholic preaching...
...They often benefit a small, well-organized minority (Continued on page 41) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) or special interest...
...As Burke reminds us, the first principle of preaching is conversion...
...Life with Father father El Cerrito, Calif...
...About half the disc is from the Gethsemani schola, and the other half by Dutch Benedictines (Nieder-altaicher Scholarem/Konrad Ruhland...
...The sermons I was used to were mostly exhortations to give money to the church...
...and the cost of building modest churches rather than cathedral-sized facilities would shrink dramatically, perhaps approximating the cost of a couple of new homes in a typical neighborhood...
...I agree with the article's subtitle that "it's all in the preparation...
...But his suggestion that a priest can find time to prepare if he really wants to ignores the context, the peculiar experience of being a pastor...
...Nothing is more jarring and deflating than, after hearing a remarkable (or even mediocre) homily, to see that person of prophetic voice slip out the sacristy door betimes...
...But interacting by computer and television is no substitute for a face-to-face deliberative process...
...I admire the patience of the people in the pews...
...The factors leading to my conversion to Protestant Christianity were, of course, much more complex than simply my response to a stirring sermon...
...The cure for bad preaching involves therapy for poor listeners as well as bad preachers...
...Thomas, wrote of the clergy as- Venerable men, their black cloth A little dusty, a little green With holy mildew...
...To the Editors: This is a comment on two articles in your April 7 issue: Richard Schoenherr's "Numbers Don't Lie" and Dennis Burke's "Why Priests Can't Preach...
...To the Editors: In her eulogy for Bishop Michael Kenny, Dolores Leckey focused on his hospitality, photographic memory, and love of the arts...
...As a city manager and municipal management consultant for more than twenty-five years, I see two other threats to the future of representative democracy...
...Something of the hearer leaves with the retreating preacher...
...Being well trained and inexpensive, parish priests must first do the branch manager work...
...1) I have heard from priests that, preaching in such a format, they find themselves preparing homilies to please the presiding pastor or to impress a senior colleague, rather than laboring from their heart to reach the people...
...Would anyone ordain a candidate who, for example, is unsuited to preside at the Eucharist because of uncontrolled stage fright, or an intolerably poor public presence...
...But we should preserve the deliberative legislative process and the responsibility for decisions which elected representatives bear...
...We were blessed to have known him...
...It includes filling out an endless stream of forms and responding to many programs mandated by the home office (the chancery), along with attendance at related meetings and conferences...
...Their share of all personal income taxes rose to 43 percent from 39 percent...
...What Burke wrote about the need to prepare for effective preaching is a given...
...At a time when virtually all leading church people took cover, he spoke out in an article in America [August 22,1992...
...More on bad preaching Cambridge, Mass...
...Had I read Dennis Burke's "Why Priests Can't Preach" three years ago I would have agreed with it all but totally...
...Various viewpoints and interests can be balanced...
...Secondly, the decline in classical studies has left most clergy painfully ignorant about the forms of effective public discourse...
...rather they wrote On men's hearts and in the minds Of young children sublime words Too soon forgotten...
...The sermons were warmer and more personal and no longer only about money...
...On that everyone agrees...
...RICHARD GRIFFIN Mediocre to lousy Somewhere Else To the Editors: I picked up the April 7 issue in our public library because I noted the title, "Why Priests Can't Preach...
...We were doubly blessed to have known God through him...
...To the Editors: I read Dennis Burke's article with joy-not because many priests can't preach, but because my parish (Saint Barnabas) is staffed by members of the Society of the Precious Blood...
...The information superhighway makes more informed citizen-input possible...
...Indeed, the narcotic effect of the media is so potent and pervasive that even when I attend people in an intensive care unit who are facing imminent death, the words and actions of the sacraments must compete, often feebly, with the current episode of "General Hospital" blaring overhead...
...As someone who knew him, loved him, and worked with him, I have many joyful memories of this faithfilled man who lived life with passion and integrity...
...And then there's the third major job: fundraising for good and necessary parish and diocesan causes...
...Worse than a great unfinished symphony...
...With the continuing state of denial among the hierarchy, the most likely prospect we face is one of more parish closures and hasty emergency solutions...
...But he says nothing of the typical consumer of homilies who spends perhaps thirty-five to fifty hours a week mesmerized by HBO, ESPN, the Internet, and Rush Limbaugh...
...The pastor and his or her flock could really know each other by name...
...Only four...
...JOSEPH P. SPAMPINATO Preaching comes first Collegeville, Minn...
...MICHON MARIE MATTHIESEN Some priests can preach Alameda, Calif...
...I have taught preaching in theology schools for years, and preach whenever I can but only when prepared...
...To the Editors: In our visually oriented culture, Dennis Burke's article is a welcome affirmation of the extraordinary gift of language-the power of words to turn over the heart, to make new...
...The Pastoral Provisions, Sheed & Ward) and occasional secular journalistic interest...
...To the Editors: In your issue of April 21, a letter from Michael Warren took you to task for saying editorially that "Welfare isn't working...
...To the Editors: Having just digested your editorial "Where Are We Going...
...To the Editors: I am taking a few moments from my preparation time for next Sunday's homily to respond to a statement in Dennis Burke's article: "Ordination does not necessarily include the charism of preaching...
...He relates his missionary spirituality to the everyday cares and blessings of his parishioners, and he does it with a sense of joy, wonder, and certainty that is most contagious...
...I was a twenty-seven-year-old practicing Catholic, with a practicing Protestant girl friend...
...A small number of communication elites will force or make decisions that mirror their interests and needs...
...Sony Classical calls the release "Greatest Hits-Chant...
...Conversely, a rather ordinary homily blossoms into something powerful when preached among people who truly hunger for the Word...
...His words were clear, logical, intelligent, and enriched with literary, topical, and other references from his personal experience...
...Tax returns reporting $ 100,000 or more in income accounted for only 4 percent of the 114.6 million returns filed for 1993...
...Priests with a history of difficulties in prior assignments are still being appointed to new pastorships...
...It requires attendance at meetings six or seven evenings a week: budget, school board, parents' association, liturgy committee, social justice committee...
...To the Editors: I enjoyed David Carlin's column on "Democracy's Future" [April 7...
...How does he read the Scriptures...
...Finally, the title of the piece, "Why Priests Can't Preach," generates a dialectical point of inquiry: "Why Parishioners Can't Hear...
...That, with crystalline clarity, describes the ministry which my father exercised in the Church of England for more than fifty years...
...LAICUS A two-way street Philadelphia, Pa...
...the intensity of presence for which our Eucharist strives is inevitably ruptured...
...Imagine what it would be like if we were to design parishes for a maximum capacity of only 250 families...
...The contrast with my Catholic experience was stark...
...To the Editors: Dennis Burke's essay took me back to the first Protestant service I ever attended, and the impact that the sermon had me...
...DANIEL DURKEN, O.S.B...
...The greatest sin the church at every level can commit is to demand so much temporal administration of the priest that he cannot be well prepared to preach...
...First, most clergy have a misguided theological orientation...
...I am told Gregorian Chant is now being played to patients in mental hospitals as well as to patrons of night clubs, the latter as a diversion...
...Again, no one is held accountable if a decision goes sour...
...Burke touches on the cultural dimension when he cites a "seasoned pastor" astonished by younger priests who spend four hours a day watching TV...
...Complex issues can be studied and discussed over a period of time...
...I had a similar reaction to the article by Dennis Burke, especially since in two of his examples preparation comes down to "how long you spend preparing...
...Not so any longer...
...His closing example shows a priest encouraging the converted in their daily living...
...They left no books, Memorial to their lone thought In grey parishes...
...In the first, Schoenherr recommends dropping mandatory celibacy as a first step toward restoring the number of candidates to the priesthood...
...As one religious sister once asked, "Why can't they ever talk about something real...
...How many minutes, I wonder, do we in the pews spend preparing our hearts and minds to hear?...Perhaps the cultivation of an age-old humility, the recollection of our dependent being before God, would engender better listening...
...Here was one intelligent human being reasoning with a group of likewise intelligent beings, and making an unmistakable point: "By this parable, Jesus was telling us believers to lay aside our prejudices, and, by our actions, show love for those who are different from us, including those of different skin color...
...Sad to say, the first is vastly more common...
...Too little courage...
...3) The designat-ed-Sunday-preacher curtails the freedom of choice of a conscientious worshiper who would attend a particular Mass on Sunday to hear a preferred homilist (admittedly, a Machiavellian concern...
...In the course of questioning this "assumption," he spoke of "the low taxes of the very rich in our country...
...However, this is hardly the most fundamental reason for the current situation...
...Trappist, Ky...
...To the Editors: Dennis Burke has written an engaging and skillful article explaining "Why Priests Can't Preach...
...At no point was this more clear, and more needed, than in 1992 as the Vatican was putting the heat on the American bishops struggling to draft a pastoral on women...
...I don't think so...
Vol. 122 • May 1995 • No. 10
