Should priests leave the altar to preach?

[bucowsky]

During the homily, one of the priests in my parish has a habit of going down from the altar to the ground level when preaching. I feel uncomfortable with his style of walking around and appears like a professor in a classroom than a preacher to me. Aside from causing neck pains to me with his walking around, it is also distracting and most of the time he loses my focus of what he is trying to say in his sermon.

Can you please help me understand if this is an acceptable norm in liturgy in the Church? Is there a way to correct this or how should I approach the matter? I don’t feel like approaching him or confronting him is the right approach. The other priests in this church preach but do not go down the altar. This particular priest is doing it in his own unique style. What is the liturgical rule? I have never seen one like him before. Is this a good or bad example for future priests to follow as far as style goes?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

There is nothing in the rubrics that provides for priests to wander around the nave while giving the homily. Unfortunately, I could find nothing that specifically forbids it either, so, if you want to pursue this, you’ll have to appeal either to the goodness of this priest’s heart or to his ego (depending on your viewpoint), and say:

“Father, when you leave the ambo during the homily and walk around the nave, we in the congregation have trouble seeing you and hearing you without twisting in our seats and craning our necks. I don’t think standing at the front of the congregation at the ground level will work either because then those in the back have difficulty seeing you. Perhaps you could consider giving your homily from the ambo as do Fr. Anderson and Fr. Jones [the other priests in the parish]?”