www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Married clergy...where's the money coming from?

Peace everyone,

I support married men being ordained into the priesthood in theory, but in practice I'm very curious how this works out financially for the Eastern Catholic Churches.

I ask because over the last couple of months, I've visited five Eastern Catholic parishes. Looking at the weekly collection report in their church bulletins, the amounts I saw seemed barely enough to pay a northern U.S. winter heating bill, let alone support a priest with a family. I know at least two of these five parishes had married clergy.

Do married Eastern Catholic priests commonly take secular employment to make ends met?

Thanks

Chance,

I too note that problem. In many Churches the subsidy is so high from the Eparchy that indeed the local offerings only cover a tiny fraction of the real costs. At some point the Eparchy will say to these Churches if you wish to have a priest your giving must increase. Some Churches will not be able to do that so they will seek merger or close. Some will be able to do that for a while but as the members die off they will have to seek merger or close. Some will find it the reality of the situation a source of revival. They will start evangelizing and will be renewed as a congregation.

I too believe in married priests and believe that the future is priests who also have a secular vocation and/or panis who work outside the home. I wish that didn't have to happen.

It does seem that if a Church really desires life they will find a way to have it if they aren't arbitrarily closed.

CDL

I know of one married priest who was well off before he became a priest. He made a comfortable living in computer stocks before they went belly up and he had enough to quit the game and pay for seminary. I think God provides for some of our married priests.

Well, when the Evangelical Orthodox Church was in the process of being received into the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese, the Antiochians could not believe the figures that the Evangelicals submitted - they had almost 20 full-time, paid clergy, plus secretaries, plus the staff of their theological institute, plus their magazine . . . you get the idea - and the number of the faithful seemed so low that such a group could not possibly support so many full-time employees. When asked to explain, the Evangelicals answered that all of their faithful tithe - faithfully.

Considering the methods which both Catholics and Orthodox are apt to use in efforts to raise money, this came as quite a shock!

Fr. Serge

Father Serge,

You seem to have hit upon something. It does make an enormous difference. It is quite possible when the people do it. If one person has enough money to pay the priest and his family a liveable salary and a priest wishes to serve that one person then I suppose it is possible to do that. There would seem to be some things lacking in that arrangement but then the one person and his priest really didn't wish anyone else to be around anyway. In theory any size group can support a priest and his family.

But at some point wouldn't the kerygma get to both the priest and the one member and the next thing one would know there would be more people there?

CDL

To accept the bible rule of the "tithe" is an obvious challenge for our Churches. My experience is that some of our people express their commitment to God and his Church most generously.

I have always been amazed at the "priorities" that our communities set for themselves. If the Church needs a new roof, or a new boiler, or a new parking lot, everyone accepts the need, and gives generously or sets about to raise the required funds.

Are we as ready to invest in people? Would a parish sponsor a seminarian, a missionary, hire an assistant priest (and his family) to increase the number of services and facilitate greater "outreach" in the ministry?

Who is willing to found a monastery, and provide for a community of monks or nuns, in order to enable a monastic community to pray the full schedule of the services of the Church on a daily basis?

The need for vocations will not simply be answered by praying for vocations, and asking God to call young men and women. We have to be willing to accept that in order to provide for the future of our parishes and monasteries it is not enough to maintain and invest in buildings and physical plants!

Great preachers, priests and deacons, monks and nuns do not just present themselves for service. When men and women to show a generous spirit and respond to the call of God, they must be formed, educated, nurtured, encouraged, challenged, and equiped for their difficult way of life. This is a duty of the Church, and is as an important use of her resources as paying the gas or insurance bill, though it bears fruit so much more slowly.

We need to be willing to invest in people, and substantially plan to support their education and ministry.

the unworthy,
Elias

Amen!!

Visit:

www.cin.org/avatar.html [cin.org]

Look for the section on GIVING.......

I don't know if htis is possible in the USA

It was possible in my old RC Parish to give a sum of money each week/month under what was known as the Gift Aid Scheme - and once registered for this any money you gave had the tax refunded on it and given to the Parish. That meant your donation each year/ month/ week or the less regular quartely collections and speial appeals [ - proveded you put your extra donations in a special envelope proveided by the parish ] would claw back mopney from the Inland Revenue and this would be given to the Parish [ or Registered Charity]

In fact the Parish benefited greatly from this - but few people realised the advantages of the scheme - after all when you are on holiday , the Parish still has to be run , bills have to be paid. It is actually painless - the money is taken directly from your bank account and all you have to do is sign a form each year.

In Australia there are Planned Giving Programs that do something the same. The UGCC eparchy have talked about setting up something similar. Dont know where they are at with that.

Fathers Serge and Elias hit the nail on the head.

Our giving tradition is (generally) to throw a dollar in the basket, with the more generous people giving $10 or so a week. (I admit I don't give as much as I probably should. I'll need to start budgeting for this). Protestants however I believe have a culture of tithing. I've never seen an organized, purposeful and consistant tithing or money raising campaign at a Catholic parish. There are occasional collections (announced at Mass!) for a particular cause or something, but never a consistent fundraising effort.

That said, if you explain what you're raising money for, why, how much you need from each and how we're doing - like the charity fundraising campaigns you see on TV or at work - I think in general people will donate. If you don't tell them to donate or what you're using it for, you can't expect a huge collection.

Moving back to the original subject, if a married priest at my parish needed financial help (or needed $$ to be put through the seminary) I personally would have no problem getting on the parish hall soapbox and asking/goading/shaming people into commiting to donate $X per week.

We know what things cost and what a few dollars buys today, so it is not hard when you think of it to work out what we should be putting in to run our parish. Each of us know what we can spare. I heard that a Protestant church in Northen Ireland has what they call silent collections (banknotes only) and another one what has large holes in the bottom so that coins would fall through. I dont think we need to go to that extend but we do need to look sseriously at what we are contributing to support our clergy and run our parish.

My dad tells a story of his Parish priest being taken to hosptial when he was a boy, as he had not been eating right. Parishoners had assumed that becasue he drove around in an expensive car (for the 1930s) that he was financially well off. What they did not realise was that the car was paid for by his family and they should have been taking care of everything else.

I grew up in one of the first of the Protestant "megachurches." Having since then found my way into the real Church, I still never cease to be amazed at the absence of teaching in the RCC and BCC in regard to money.

I always learned that outside of extraordinary circumstances, the first 10% belongs to God, and that anything beyond that could be considered an "offering." I often heard Malachi 3:10 quoted, explained, and backed up by personal testimony (not that personal testimony makes anything true, but it often encourages one to try something for oneself!) At a minimum, one learns that while the tithe is not a New Testament standard, it is not a bad place to start.

This notion of throwing in a dollar to make the collection basket go away is completely foreign to me, and I think to most people whose faith background is rooted among the "separated brethren."

St. Paul did not apologize for urging generosity, because a) he wasn't using the money himself and b) giving builds the spiritual life and faith of the giver as well as the recipient.
How sad that usually our priests do not confidently exhort people to give sacrificially to God's work: in our affluent society, it's often the first place the rubber meets the road.

As David said, "I will not give to the Lord my God that which cost me nothing."

I think that the money thing has been avoided as one of those topics nice people dont talk about. I see the envolopes going into the second collection at the RC Churchs I go to on Sundays.

When I was last in London I paid my money to visit certain older churches like St Paul's Cathedral and the royal tombs area at Westminster Abbey. At St Paul's they have a sign up explaining how much it costs them to have the lights on all day and other costs just to keep the doors open. Put that way, I had no problem as paying my money for a quick visit. Mind you on previous visits I moaned like others and refused to pay to got to Church, but not anymore.

I am surprised that there does not seem to be any planned giving type programs in the USA. Shocked even. I had heard that Americans were very generous when it came to giving money to the Church. It does seem from reading these posts that a program is needed. I was impressed to see the posting from Fr Serge about the Antiochians new members and their finances.

I know priests in the Byzantine Church who were ordered by their bishops to stop teaching about money because it makes the people angry and then they won't like you and will stop coming around.

I never understood that because people always complain about being asked to give more but I never saw them stop coming around, and some of them did give more. But that's just my years of experience talking.

Eli