How to Properly Handle Exceptions in a JSP/Servlet App?

How do you properly handle errors encountered in a servlet? Right now, the app that I inherited (uses only plain JSP/Servlet) has a superclass called Controller which extends HttpServlet and which all other servlets extend from. In that Controller class is a try and catch block like the following:

try {
    // execute doPost or doGet here
} catch (Exception e) {
    // show a generic error page
}

Is this the proper way of doing it? It seems clunky and doesn't seem to always work. I'm only an intern so I don't have a lot of experience with this. Any advice? I'm trying to make the app for robust..