Are priests allowed to drink alcohol?

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Well I don’t know about others, but at my parish, when you call the rectory, it’s always an answering machine that picks up.

When I was in the hospital for a week and a half, no priest or deacon showed up, despite my wife leaving a message.

So, if father want’s a drink, go ahead, you can check your phone messages in the morning or whenever you feel up to it.
 
That’s unfortunate and I’m very sorry that those tasked with your pastoral care were so bad in delivering it.

Whenever we get hospital calls to my parish, we try to go immediately, unless it’s not an emergency. Even then, we try to go within a day or so, when time allows.
 
It wasn’t a good experience from my parish priest and deacon.

If not for EMHC’s from other parishes in the area of the hospital, I would never have received Holy Communion in the three months of illness.

Yet, since I’ve return to my parish for Sunday Mass, every week it’s about us giving more money to this and that.

My wife and myself are disgusted Catholics at this point in our senior lives
 
CilladeRoma said:
Priests do get paid and have their own money.
They do not use collection plate funds for their own personal use.
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I didn’t know that. They get a salary?

I thought they fed themselves from the collection plate and the rest went on candles, bills etc.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
So, if father want’s a drink, go ahead, you can check your phone messages in the morning or whenever you feel up to it.
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I love drinking alcohol but if I were a priest I would hate myself if I had a few drinks, let the answering machine do its work and find out someone died in hospital during the night that needed me.

I hope it doesn’t happen.
 
Diocesan priest receive a salary from the Dioceses.

They are not mandated to take vows of poverty and can build up wealth for themselves.

Priest in Religious Orders, like Carmelites and Franciscans, do make vows of poverty.

I’ve seen a marked difference in the spirituality of priest in religious orders compared to diocesan priest.

Heck, my last three pastors, my wife and myself had more knowledge on contemplation than they did.
 
I remember having tea and a biscuit in the quarters of a Franciscan priest (at the cathedral); he seemed very not rich, if you know what I mean?
 
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JimR-OCDS said:
When I was in the hospital for a week and a half, no priest or deacon showed up, despite my wife leaving a message.
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Wow…I’m sorry to hear this. When one of my parents passed, who wasn’t even Catholic, the Catholic priest where my other parent went to church went out of their way to support us. I don’t know if it makes any difference but he was an American born priest. My other parent’s faith sent their own clergy and were very good too about visiting. It was like a shot the to the arm in my view of the entire Christian faith.

I don’t think alcohol played any role in anything.
 
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Mildly off topic, but our salaries don’t come from the Diocese. Unless we’re talking about a case where a parish has a hard time affording to pay its priest and the Diocese works out some arrangement to subsidize it, we get paid by the parish we’re assigned to.
 
I guess that can vary from diocese to diocese, or perhaps by episcopal conference. Secular priests in this Archdiocese are paid by the Archdiocese.

Edited to add: for those who do not already know it, I don’t live in the US.
 
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Nelka said:
I didn’t know that. They get a salary?
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The diocese may sign the pay check, but that’s only to centralize the payroll and reduce expenses Diocesan-wide. Each parish pays the priest’s salary out of its budget, which is funded by the collection basket, endowments, and other assorted revenue.
 
Diocesan priest pay taxes including Social Security Taxes. So, when they reach retirement age, they can and do collect SS retirement benefits.

This, plus the diocese has an annual appeal for retire priest and nuns as well as the parish having an envelope to support retired religious.
 
Not in my dioceses and I have first hand knowledge about it as I served on the Parish Council and when I was in the Diaconate Discernment program, learned about the salaries of priest and the few deacons who get paid.

Most deacons in my dioceses do not get paid.
 
I think Nelka is in the UK… I don’t believe Catholic parish priests are paid a salary there. I think it’s based on the collection plates on Christmas and Easter or something like that.
 
In my home diocese, the priest was paid by the diocese. The pastor’s salary did not appear on the parish budget, just the salaries of any lay employees. The parish contributed the cathedral tax or whatever’s it’s called… not sure if that’s true Canada wide or diocese by diocese.
 
The Dioceses has a contract with the priest and his salary is made by the Bishop of the Dioceses.

We never saw the priests salary on our budget reports, but the parish is taxed(what we called it) 7% of our weekly donations, by the Dioceses.
 
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