Sermons

 The New York Times reports on a minor stir in the Southern Baptist world, where one prominent minister seems to have repeated another's sermon. Those who are interested can no doubt find the sermons on YouTube and commentary on-line.

Coming from a more structured liturgical tradition (at least I think so--I know little of Southern Baptist services), I find the fuss surprising. Others might as well. When at the crisis of  Wodehouse's "The Great Sermon Handicap" the Rev. James Bates delivered the Rev. Francis Heppenstall's noted sermon on Brotherly Love, including "the rather exhaustive excursions into the family life of the early Assyrians",  the Rev. Mr. Heppenstall being out of action owing to hay fever, Bingo Little suffered, or a least registered, "grief, rage, despair and resentment":

"Well, all I can say," he cried, "is that it's a bit thick! Preaching another man's sermon? Do you call that honest? Do you call that playing the game?"

Bertie Wooster, though also out of pocket, spoke up for common practice:

"Well, my dear old thing," I said, "be fair. It's quite within the rules. Clergymen do it all the time. They aren't expected always to make up the sermons they preach."

(Second Story Books had the Germanic volume of The Great Sermon Handicap: pretty much every form of the Germanic languages newer than Anglo-Saxon, but excluding the Scandinavian languages, which have their own volume.  I guess that it is as well the the Romance languages volume wasn't there to be bought.)

I don't know what the expectations are among the Roman Catholic clergy, though I do know that any priest who approached the Rev. Mr. Heppenstall's forty-five minutes would be pushing the limits of his congregation's patience.