Yes Yes Yes Yes YES!!!!!!!
From Socrates Villegas, Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan in the Phillippines:
We have seen many abuses among the clergy – alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, child abuse, gambling abuse, money abuse, travelling abuse, vacation abuse. Today, I invite you to turn your hearts to another very rampant and widespread abuse among priests – homily abuse. Yes, abuse of the kindness of the people who are forced to listen to long, winding, repetitious, boring, unorganized, unprepared, mumbled homilies. In jest but certainly with some truth, the people say our homilies are one of the obligatory scourges that they must go through every Sunday.
What I find most annoying about some priests is that they seem to be afraid to preach the Catholic faith. A lot of the time, what you get is pop psychology-- stuff you could get on Oprah or Dr. Phil. The advice is all well and good. But there's a lack of information on how to live a holy life. Nary a word on grace, mortification, self-denial, or any other Catholic buzz-words. Then we wonder how people are so ignorant about our faith.
Well the priests don't preach it.
And it bothers me because if a priest doesn't preach about grace and mortification, it makes me wonder if he doesn't believe in it. And if he doesn't believe it, on what basis does he live his Catholic spirituality?
I also wish priests would be more willing to include tidbits from the popes and the saints. We have all this wealth of Catholic wisdom, and it's never invoked. What a waste.
