A passion for preaching

SCITUATE -- It is just after 10:30 on a Sunday morning, and a warm breeze is blowing off Scituate Harbor and through the blue stained-glass windows at a packed St. Mary of the Nativity Church, as Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, his brown friar's hood poking out over the back of his green chasuble, begins to preach.

His voice rises and falls, from a near whisper to a forceful shout, as he moves his hands through the air, accentuating each key phrase. Sometimes he grabs the sides of the lectern and rocks forward on his feet; his eyes move across the audience.

The opening is a joke about Ireland, but O'Malley rapidly moves toward the heart of his message: that contemporary culture has encouraged a level of individualism that is at odds with Christian notions of community and truth, that Catholics need to recognize God's love on the way to living out God's will, and that Catholics need to do a better job sharing their faith through the evangelization of others.

Two years into his tenure as archbishop of Boston, O'Malley's public profile has largely been defined by a few key actions: his settlement of sex abuse cases, his sale of the archbishop's mansion and move into the cathedral rectory, his unsuccessful campaign against gay marriage, and his controversial parish closings program.

But he has quietly been defining another profile, or at least attempting to do so, through relentless preaching to churchgoing Catholics, who make up perhaps a small but influential fraction -- less than 20 percent -- of the estimated 2 million Catholics in the 144 cities and towns that make up the archdiocese. Throughout the two years, most weekends, he has said Mass at least two parishes, and he has also preached at large retreat-like gatherings of Catholics, and to inmates in prison.

Through his preaching, O'Malley is sketching out an agenda for the archdiocese that has nothing to do with cleaning up the mess created by the abuse crisis, bringing order to the diocese's troubled administrative and financial structures, or battling public policy measures increasingly at odds with Catholic teaching -- even though those items have consumed much of his time.

In his homilies, which he drafts by hand late at night after long days of meetings, O'Malley focuses almost exclusively on spiritual matters, offering faith in Jesus as a solution to a culture beset by spiritual hunger and moral ambiguity. He tends to stick to broad descriptions of Christian faith, rarely offering a list of do's and don'ts or exhorting worshipers to specific courses of action. His general themes, he says, have been the importance of the Eucharist, prayer, and church.

His denomination is facing all kinds of troublesome issues, many of which have alienated large numbers of Catholics from their archbishop.

Last Sunday, the day he visited this seaside South Shore suburb, he was just a few miles from another Catholic church, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, which has been occupied by protesters around the clock since it was closed nine months ago. On Beacon Hill, the Legislature had just resumed a debate over the possible reimposition of capital punishment, which the Catholic Church opposes, while in Washington, Congress was debating an increase in federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, which the Catholic Church is also fighting. And, overseas, a bombing attack had just killed scores of people in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

But in his homilies -- generally about 20 minutes long -- he generally avoids such worldly matters.

It is not clear who is listening. Attendance at Mass has dwindled over the last half-century, and in particular since the eruption of the sexual abuse crisis three years ago. Even when crowds flock to see O'Malley, as they did in Scituate, homilies can be difficult to hear over the din of crying children and the rustle of parishioners anxious to receive Communion and head home.

But for O'Malley, a Franciscan Capuchin friar, preaching is a major element of his ministry -- just as it was for St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century Italian founder of the Franciscan order, who was renowned for his zealous preaching, and who even preached, legend has it, to birds.

O'Malley often appears far more engaged and impassioned while preaching than he is in person. Numerous people who have met with him in office settings describe him as given to long, unsettling silences, which some view as pensiveness and others as disengagement. But at the altar, O'Malley's presence is undeniable.

O'Malley's preaching style provides a sharp contrast with that of his predecessor, Cardinal Bernard F. Law. Although both have low, stentorian preaching voices, O'Malley's language is far more informal, and his references much more wide-ranging. While Law tended to quote solely from religious texts, O'Malley frequently cites a wide variety of popular literature, poetry, philosophy, and occasionally performing arts. Among the recurrent sources of anecdotes for him are the novel ''Don Quixote," the television show ''All in the Family" (he says he has not watched television in years), and the short stories of Flannery O'Connor; in recent days he has cited the fiction of John Steinbeck and the poetry of Francis Thompson.

But the most striking difference is in use of humor. Law rarely made a joke; O'Malley opens every homily with a humorous anecdote, and often tells a second joke during the homily; his comic delivery is smooth and his jokes often succeed in getting the attention of his audience.

''Archbishop O'Malley is the best homilist I've ever heard. There's a passion with which he delivers the homily -- not an over-the-top thing, but you can sense his love of God and the Church," said the Rev. Christopher Kirwan, dean of faculty at St. John's Seminary, who also teaches preaching. ''Certain parts are not meant to be shouted; other parts call for a serious tone and others call for a lighter tone. That's just good communication. No one wants to hear a monotone, with our 27.5-second attention span."

Thematically, O'Malley's homilies often echo the late Pope John Paul II's critique of what he perceived to be excessive individualism and materialism in Western society, featuring an explicit or implicit criticism of aspects of American popular and consumer culture. On occasion, he has criticized MTV, but generally his critique is less specific.

''Sometimes people confuse happiness with fun," O'Malley told the Scituate assembly last weekend. ''Sometimes we confuse cleverness with wisdom. . . . Wisdom is being able to see the world through God's eyes, to be able to see what is really truly important."

Asked in an interview to elaborate on his concern, O'Malley said the individualism of contemporary society has also led many away from traditional religion with its set of shared beliefs. He said individualism is a strength of American culture, but also that ''this individualism has even undermined people's willingness to embrace the truth."

''People begin to see the truth as tyrannical because somehow it impinges on my personal taste and freedom, rather than seeing that real freedom is based on truth -- what exists, what is, as opposed to what I would like and what my personal preferences are."

O'Malley also often echoes, in less strident language, Pope Benedict XVI's concerns that many people in the West want to define their own values, rather than hewing to a communal, faith-based set of truths laid out by God.

''In today's world, it's becoming more and more difficult to discern between right and wrong -- the Ten Commandments have faded into the background," he told the Scituate assembly. ''Today too many people want to write their own set of directions for humanity."

In recent days, he has also talked in homilies increasingly about the need for evangelism by Catholics -- reaching out to bring more people into a church struggling with disaffection, apathy, agnosticism, and competition. ''The Gospel tells us to be fishers of men, but too often we become keepers of the aquarium," he says. He offers an upbeat depiction of Catholic faith -- Jesus as the happiest bridegroom ever, filled with love for people, asking people to give themselves to God and one another.

''Sometimes the hard words of the Gospel seem very challenging to people, but if we are aware that God loves us so much and he's calling us to a life of love, then we'll be able to embrace those difficult teachings that challenge us where we tend to be most selfish, in the areas of sexuality or power or possessions," he said.

O'Malley often jokes about the poor quality of Catholic preaching -- a frequent complaint of Catholic worshipers, and historically less of a priority in Catholic worship services than in many Protestant congregations. O'Malley said he is concerned about the quality of Catholic preaching, and is contemplating organizing workshops for local priests. ''Sometimes people will come up to me and say, 'Oh, bishop, that's the best sermon I've heard in my life,' " O'Malley said. ''It used to fuel my vanity. Now it just instills panic in me."

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.