Pictures speak louder than words for PowerPoint priest
For anyone who has been forced to endure near death by PowerPoint, its very name may trigger unforced yawns.
But for one County Galway priest the tool has proved vital for re-engaging the faithful.
Fr Joe Roche is parish priest of Ardrahan and Kilchreest, where he celebrates Mass in three churches, St Teresa of Avila in Labane, The Nativity in Kilchreest and St Teresa, Castledaly.
Since the new translation of the Roman Missal was introduced by the clergy in November 2011, he noticed that the responses among the congregation were nowhere near as robust as they once were.
Only a small minority of the flock would consult a missal or read the newsletter throughout the service.
“It was terrible. They dropped off completely because they weren’t familiar with the texts,” he recalls.
While on holiday in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to visit a brother, he dropped by the city’s cathedral and noticed they were using slides on a projector, which contained some of the responses.
“It worked very well,” he recalls.
He decided to follow the South East Asian example and erect projectors in the three churches. The hardest part of the project was sourcing the texts. There was a lot of copying and pasting from websites based in America, Australia and the UK.
Initially he projected Missal responses, psalms and the Penitential Rite.
But after a bit of experimenting, he starting putting up images to accompany the words.
Fr Roche is not averse to trying a bit of humour either, although he does admit it sometimes goes down like a lead balloon.
“I try. At times it works and times it doesn’t. Working humour on a congregation is a risky business. I cracked a joke the other Sunday and I thought it was very funny. Nobody else did though. It is a risk.”
For more on this story, see this week’s Connacht Tribune