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The Rev. Don Wester, pastor of All Saints Catholic Church in St. Peters, Mo., is Kenrick's lecturer of homiletics -- the art of preaching.
He believes homilies should be practical and direct -- that they should draw a connection between the everyday struggles of parishioners and biblical truths.
And it's exactly the kind of preaching that U.S. Catholic bishops are hoping for as part of a new national effort to foster better Catholic homilies.
At their annual fall meeting this month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted overwhelmingly to accept the new preaching document, their first since 1982.
The document is an admonishment of poor preaching, saying the bishops are "aware that in survey after survey over the past years, the People of God have called for more powerful and inspiring preaching. A steady diet of tepid or poorly prepared homilies is often cited as a cause for discouragement on the part of laity and even leading some to turn away from the Church."
"You can't sit down Saturday evening, type out a homily and expect to move people's minds and hearts," Carlson said.
The Rev. David Meconi, a theology professor at St. Louis University and editor of the journal Homiletic & Pastoral Review, said the church needed "preachers willing to preach out of their own heart."
"Too many priests read as if they're giving a lecture, and others don't do any preparation and just wing it," Meconi said. "The heart of a good message is pathos, passion."
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You can read the entire post, "Catholic priests pushed to become better preachers," here.
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