Karla Bellinger

Background

About Karla Bellinger

My retirement from Notre Dame lasted all of 364 days: on August 31st, 2020, I retired. I did a lot of gardening and grew almost all of our vegetables for the year. It has been great fun. On August 30th, 2021, I took a new position. The good folks of Dallas have raised many dollars to improve Catholic preaching. They have tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to be the founding executive director for their Institute for Homiletics. There is a much passion among those in the pew for greater depth in preaching; moms and dads struggle to get their teenagers into the pew and then pray that there will be a word that will rouse them. My focus will be on helping our preachers to flourish, asking "how can we help our people encounter the living God through the Sunday homily?" There is much building ahead. God bless it all! The book that arose from my listener studies with young people, clergy and catechist interviews,"Connecting Pulpit and Pew: Breaking Open the Conversation about Catholic Preaching," from Liturgical Press is available at If you are one who preaches, it will help you to understand how to better connect with your listeners, especially young ones. If you are not a preacher, why would you want to read it? In my research, I discovered what I call "The Loud Silence"- there is lots of conversation about preaching that goes on in parking lots, in dorm rooms, in the car, and at the dinner table. Rarely do people in the pew speak to their homilist about how to effectively connect with them or vice versa. This book gives a way to do that. Preaching makes a difference in peoples' lives. Let's start to talk about it.