ALEXANDRIA - The Rev. Joseph Brink will never be one of those ministers who saves time by ripping sermons off the Internet.

Of course, some might wish he would.

Every week, the opinionated priest takes out a pencil and four sheets of yellow notebook paper. He ponders the Scripture readings for the following Sunday. Then he gets worked up over the issues of the day: cell phones, pedophile priests, upcoming elections, street repairs, Iraq.

He finds a connection to Christ, and voilą: Another homily that couldn't have been written by anyone else.

He does his thing

This is the way it should be. In recent months, ministers around the country have gotten in trouble for copying sermons posted online. This is not only dishonest but also a surefire path to saying nothing interesting.

Father Brink, a priest at St. Mary Catholic Church since 1991, can't be accused of that.

During a Mass last year, he likened Cincinnati's civil unrest to the elephant in the room: "More than once he `does his thing,' and it is big and it is smelly," the priest said.

Nice.

Another time, he used Luke 3:3 - about smoothing the road for the King - to comment on the city's repair of Washington Street. It looks good, but the cobblestone will be tough on wheelchairs, he said.

Then there was his homily about the "Neanderthal mentality" and "do-nothing approach" of the Alexandria City Council majority in 1998. He encouraged parishioners to vote wisely.

Present was Councilwoman Charlotte Krift, who gathered she was among the barely human.

She wiped it out of her mind, she says, but the Covington diocese got complaints. The bishop declined to rebuke Father Brink.

Politics part of life

This Sunday, he will again talk about voting.

He got statistics from the Campbell County clerk: In 2000, 64.7 percent of the county's registered voters went to the polls. Forty-nine percent did so in 1998.

That's good, but not good enough, the priest will say. Christians have a responsibility to participate in civic life, just as ministers have the duty to write their own sermons. And if people disagree with his messages Sunday ... well, so be it, he says.

"Politics is part of people's lives. There are moral issues involved. Abortion is one, but peace is also one, violence is one, feeding the poor is one.

"In politics, there is seldom one right answer. If we don't explore different viewpoints and bounce things off of one another, we're never going to be very balanced."

Knowing he'll have one, I ask for Father Brink's opinion on our governor's sex life. It shows, he says, that today's leaders get elected by money and influence, not on character.

"I think the Democratic Party has a death wish," he adds. "We keep messing up."

I'm scribbling. Father Brink gets nervous. "Now don't quote me!"

There's a pause.

"OK," he says. "Go ahead."

E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com or (859) 578-5584.