What can people do when they want to read more but just can’t carve out the time?
Father Mitchell Bechtold came up with a unique solution. He wanted to delve into certain old books, like theological texts and works that aren’t readily available in English. But as a pastor in the One in Faith Area Catholic Community, his free time is limited.
Fortunately, as some have said, “There’s an app for that.”
So he put his technological background to use and created an audiobook of “In Charity Unfeigned,” a biography of Father Francis Xavier Pierz, written in 1952 by Father William Furlan. He listened to it while driving between his parishes in Greenwald, Meire Grove, Melrose and Spring Hill or while doing household tasks.
“The life and example of Father Pierz deserves to be taught and his holy example imitated,” Father Bechtold said. “This book was just so interesting — I knew others would like to hear it as well.” (See below for how to access the audiobook.)
He cautioned that some words used then may sound offensive to people’s ears, words which had different meanings in earlier eras.
“My motivation in creating audiobooks is not only to read more,” Father Bechtold said, “but also to make some of the literary treasures in our diocese archives more available to the public. For example, our diocese has unique old books, rare books in which only a few copies exist, useful and interesting ones. I want to make some of them available online, like those pertaining to our diocesan history, and especially those works which have few editions remaining.”
It can take from four to eight hours to listen to all of “In Charity Unfeigned,” he said. On YouTube, people can listen to videos at varying speeds, slower or faster, depending on their particular needs. If a listener wants to go back, they can use a touch screen and tap the screen in the direction they want the video to go. It jumps — forward or back — in increments of 10 seconds so a person can go back to things they may have missed.
Among those who have listened are the retired priests at the Speltz House, like Father Eb Shefers, who “read” it in under a week.
Thus far Father Bechtold has shared a link to the audiobook on his parish Facebook pages and by direct messages. There’s no charge for people interested in hearing “In Charity Unfeigned.”
“I’m not using cost-prohibitive technology — a cell phone and a computer — which I already owned,” he said. “This put them to a good use. There was a bit of a learning curve with the software of vFlat Scan and I found good screen capture software. With a little video editing of the original recording, I upload to my personal YouTube channel and it’s done. I can be off doing other things when the audiobook is recording on my computer.”
The format of audiobooks is accessible to many people, he said, a little like digitizing the old issues of the diocesan newspapers, the St. Cloud Register and The Visitor, which is a project he completed in 2024.
“I recently made a translation of a book of Lenten sermons written in German by Johann Nepomuk Kraus in 1822. In a matter of minutes with Google or magisterium.com or AI chatbots, we can read translated copies,” Father Bechtold said. “What makes this such a breakthrough for me is that these books were the definitive resources that priests used when preaching and teaching.”
He hopes to create a digital catalogue of “The Message,” published during Bishop Busch’s first years in the St. Cloud Diocese.
“One whole year of that early official diocesan publication was printed in German. I hope these articles will one day be on the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, like The Visitor and St. Cloud Register,” Father Bechtold said. “I like making these written treasures in our diocese more available and known.”
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To listen to “In Charity Unfeigned”
Click on this link: https://youtu.be/97KGBnLzcLE?feature=shared
This book celebrates the life of Father Francis Xavier Pierz, the first priest in the Diocese of St. Cloud. He left Slovenia at age 49 to come to the New World to evangelize both Europeans and Natives.