{"id":3756,"date":"2009-12-08T06:09:01","date_gmt":"2009-12-08T06:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/a-20-minute-sermon.html"},"modified":"2009-12-08T06:09:01","modified_gmt":"2009-12-08T06:09:01","slug":"a-20-minute-sermon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/a-20-minute-sermon.html","title":{"rendered":"A 20-minute sermon?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Evidently, that&#8217;s not uncommon in some parts of the world.  <\/p>\n<p>And an archdiocese in India is trying to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mid-day.com\/news\/2009\/dec\/081209-Catholic-church-Priests-Bishop-Bosco-Penha.htm\">put a stop to it: <\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThe Catholic church in a recent circular has instructed the clergy to keep their sermons short.<\/p>\n<p>The archdiocese of Mumbai, Bishop Bosco Penha, stated that priests who preach for more than 20 minutes during mass should be &#8220;strongly discouraged&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The homily is an important part of the liturgy and is always given by an ordained minister.<\/p>\n<p>It should be well-prepared and to the point,&#8221; said the missive that contained a host of other instructions for priests on how to enrich the service to draw more Catholics back to the church.<\/p>\n<p>The memo was printed in the recent edition of the Catholic newsletter, The Examiner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People would complain matter, which is read out, is forgotten,&#8221; said newsletter editor and diocese spokesperson Fr Anthony Charanghat.<\/p>\n<p>The instructions also discourage the use of PowerPoint presentations and skits to liven up the homily.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The homily is meant to be a one-on-one between the priest and his parish. A PowerPoint presentation can supplement the sermon, but not replace it.<\/p>\n<p>The Pope has strongly encouraged us to use technology to reach out to the masses, but it cannot be the end of all our interaction with the faithful,&#8221; said Charanghat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> There&#8217;s more at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mid-day.com\/news\/2009\/dec\/081209-Catholic-church-Priests-Bishop-Bosco-Penha.htm\">the link.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evidently, that&#8217;s not uncommon in some parts of the world. And an archdiocese in India is trying to put a stop to it: The Catholic church in a recent circular has instructed the clergy to keep their sermons short. The archdiocese of Mumbai, Bishop Bosco Penha, stated that priests who preach for more than 20&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-art-of-preaching"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A 20-minute sermon? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/a-20-minute-sermon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A 20-minute sermon? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Evidently, that&#8217;s not uncommon in some parts of the world. 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