Cardinal Dolan Is America’s Preacher Par Excellence| National Catholic Register

Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s nearly 50 years of priestly service touched many aspects of the life of the Church, but above all, he was the preacher par excellence of the American episcopate.

The second Sunday of Advent this year, Dec. 7, marked the 60th anniversary of Presbyterorum Ordinis, the Second Vatican Council’s document on the priesthood, which teaches that “proclaiming the Gospel” is the “primary duty” of priests, fulfilling the commission of Jesus to “preach the Gospel to every creature.”

“Through the saving word, the spark of faith is lit in the hearts of unbelievers, and fed in the hearts of the faithful,” Vatican II taught about preaching, but noted that “priestly preaching is often very difficult in the circumstances of the modern world.”

Many priests do struggle to be good preachers. Surveys of Catholics often identify poor preaching as a primary complaint. (Is it fair to ask, though, what else is there to complain about at Mass — the Collect or the Preface?)

Cardinal Dolan, long before he became a bishop, was an exemplary preacher. In his years as a seminary vice-rector and rector, he inspired generations of priests to be better preachers.

He was succinct, he was clear, and he used the rhetorical arts in a way that few preachers do. As a seminarian when he was rector of the Pontifical North American College (NAC) in Rome, I well remember that his rector’s conferences could lift up the entire house, palpably inspiring men in the weeks that followed.

As the archbishop of New York, he put a high priority on preaching in the pulpit in St. Patrick’s Cathedral every Sunday morning and every weekday, too, when not having a Mass elsewhere that day. His weekday homilies were delivered without notes — which did not mean unprepared — and on Sundays, he would retrieve his handwritten yellow legal-pad pages from his cassock pocket. In addition were the minute-long messages that he would record for daily release online.

The third Sunday of Advent was his last Sunday homily as archbishop of New York, and Cardinal Dolan hinted as much, permitting himself to reflect that Christmas for him — “at least these last 17 years” — truly came for him at Midnight Mass. It was a practical invitation to his congregation to put Mass at the center of the feast, “literally Christ-Mass.” 

He preached on John the Baptist declaring “Behold the Lamb of God,” tracing salvation history from the Passover lamb to the wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation. He then employed his distinctive homiletic cadence, moving step by step through the biblical footsteps of the Lamb and its echoes in the Holy Mass:

How fitting that Jesus would first be worshipped by shepherds — shepherds who tended the lambs. How proper that He would be born in a stable surrounded by sheep. How appropriate… How natural… How awesome… How moving…

It was the perfect Gaudete Sunday homily, entirely in keeping with what he would offer most Sundays.

Over many years of hearing Cardinal Dolan preach, some highlights stand out.

His friend, Cardinal John Foley, died on Gaudete Sunday in 2011, and Cardinal Dolan preached his funeral Mass in Philadelphia. He recalled that he got a call early Sunday morning telling him that Cardinal Foley had died.

“When I then returned to my breviary, it was this line from St. Augustine, the second lesson for that day’s office, that greeted me: ‘John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word who was in the beginning. John is the voice that lasts but for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives forever,’” Cardinal Dolan said.

That became his theme. Cardinal Foley — for decades the “voice of Christmas” as television commentator on the global broadcast of Midnight Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica — was the voice. Jesus was the Word. Thus, Cardinal Dolan presented an account of his friend’s life as variations on a theme — John was an amiable, thoughtful and witty voice, but Jesus was always the eternal Word.

The same might well be said of Cardinal Dolan, whose preaching always sought to find echoes of the biblical text in the circumstances of his preaching. 

He was installed as archbishop in St. Patrick’s on Wednesday of the Easter Octave in 2009, for which the assigned Gospel passage is the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Cardinal Dolan recalled that when on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he was disappointed to learn that the road to Emmaus was now unknown; pilgrims could not walk along it. So perhaps the road to Emmaus was to be found spiritually elsewhere?

“My new friends of this great archdiocese, would you join your new pastor on an ‘adventure in fidelity?’” the new archbishop asked his new parishioners. “As we turn the Staten Island Expressway, Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Broadway, the FDR, the Major Deegan, and the New York State Thruway into the Road to Emmaus, as we witness a real ‘miracle on 34th Street’ and turn that into the Road to Emmaus?”

At the conclusion of his time as rector of the seminary in Rome, one of my classmates asked Dolan to give us a practical talk on how to prepare homilies, given his mastery of the art. He had 10 points. One of the points was to use enumerated points in a homily; if the people are told that there are three or five or seven points, they know the homilist is prepared, can follow the structure and — best of all! — know that an end is in sight.

The last point was realistic, delivered with characteristic good humor.

“Gentlemen, some of you, no matter how much you try, no matter how hard you work, will be boring preachers,” he said. “It’s good to know that. And if you are boring, be brief!”

Cardinal Dolan himself was never boring, and usually brief. He was a great teller of homiletic stories, and his favorite was about his friend, Msgr. Bernard Yarrish, a seminary classmate who would go on to serve with Cardinal Dolan as vice-rector in Rome. 

Toward the end of his service at the NAC, Msgr. Yarrish’s health declined and his walking became unsteady. One day, at a Mass for just a few seminarians concelebrated by Dolan and Msgr. Yarrish, the latter was making his way to the pulpit to preach. His legs buckled and he reached out to the altar to steady himself. We were concerned for him, worried that he might not be able to continue. Msgr. Yarrish gathered himself, deciding to remain at the altar to preach.

“I need to stand here at the altar,” the monsignor said. “If I don’t hang on to the altar, I will fall.”

Several times when preaching, including at Msgr. Yarrish’s funeral in 2018 — he died on the 42nd anniversary of his priestly ordination — Cardinal Dolan would recount those brief lines of his friend, pause, and then say: “The best homily I ever heard!”

Cardinal Dolan was the best homilist in the American episcopate. His presence at St. Patrick’s will continue until Archbishop Ronald Hicks is installed in February 2026, and then he will retire from that pulpit. His preaching will continue elsewhere, as invitations will inundate him from all over the world. 

The voice will remain for a time. The Word will endure.