Pre-Approved Sermon

Part of a priest's job is writing and delivering a sermon to his flock. This is harder than it sounds, since it requires that he be both a good essayist and a good orator. What's more, the message he chooses to deliver has to be chosen with care... "good thing" he has help there in the form of some meddling authority.

A cleric subject to Pre-Approved Sermons either has his sermons pre-written by another person and is forced to read them as is, or has his own sermon heavily edited. Usually, the meddler is either the cleric's direct benefactor (owns the parish building) or a lay leader who finances the church. Even if the meddler has no material means to bully the priest in this way, he usually has such force of personality (aided by the priest being young or insecure) that he can get away with it.

Such meddlers do this for one or more reasons. Primarily, they believe they are best suited to spiritually lead the congregation, and so "help" the priest. They might instead/also have an obsession with controlling everything, especially sources of potential criticism or rebellion (pick up a history book, a good number of revolutions started behind a pulpit), or they out and out mean to "train" the populace to accept less than ideal living conditions directly or indirectly brought about by the meddler.

Expect the religious leader to either grow a backbone and speak out against the meddler at some point, or have the meddler somehow be stopped from interfering.

Examples of Pre-Approved Sermon include:

Comic Books

• The bishop from V for Vendetta mentions building his sermons around the suggestions of Fate, the totalitarian government's supercomputer. (Neither this trope nor the supercomputer are present in the film version.)

Film

• Chocolat had the mayor do this to the young priest who just came in. The first time he gets to make his own sermon marks when the town is finally 'healed' of the rift the chocolaterie and the mayor were in.
  • Note that the Chocolat example only applies to the movie. In the book, the mayor character is actually the priest, and there is no younger priest character.
• Found in the 1960 movie of Pollyanna. I don't see how this sort of logic is supposed to follow. Stupid nosy Aunt Polly...
  • Also found in the all-black remake in 1989, but interestingly, not in the original novel.
    • Of course, the 1960 movie is largely In Name Only

Literature

• Pride and Prejudice had Mr. Collins submit all his sermons to Lady Catherine De Bourgh's editing and approval willingly.
• The Safehold series has the Church of God Awaiting operate like this. When Charis's bishop gives a sermon that comes very close to heresy by Church standards, it's taken as very serious by the Group of Four.

Live Action TV

• In an episode of Carnivale, Brother Justin is given a pre-approved sermon which he starts to read then rips apart in favor of his own words. Not quite a heartwarming moment, as Brother Justin isn't exactly the good guy. It is, however, a Crowning Moment of Awesome - the cinematography alone, not to mention the completely silent roar of approval given by his parishioners.
• To the Manor Born. One of the reasons the Rector would be glad if Audrey moved away is because as the former matron of the manor she would stick her nose into everything, including his sermons.

Newspaper Comics

• The comic strip Candorville applies this to American faith-based initiatives, with a preacher forced to give pro-Republican sermons to get cash. (Candorville is not very subtle when it goes for pure political commentary.)

Web Comics

• Something*Positive uses a similar plot line: a rich but very dour parishioner in Fred and Faye's church offers to buy a new baptismal fountain, but on the condition that the annual Easter festivities are canceled, since she sees them as distracting from the holiday's message of sin and salvation. She actually wins in the end, because even while most of the church disagrees with her, nobody but Faye and Fred are willing to do anything about it.

Western Animation

• In The Simpsons, Mr Burns financed the rebuilding of the church, intending to recoup the money from advertising. As part of the settlement, Rev. Lovejoy had to praise the sponsors in his sermons, which drove Lisa to leave the church.