At offertory- no envelope- we pay via bank

[Digitonomy]

What I’m trying to say here is that when people contribute to a parish in such a way that the parish is obligated to give a receipt, but at the same time, the parish cannot fulfill that obligation, it puts the parish into a difficult position.

I don’t understand why this is such a difficult position. If someone drops a blank envelope in the basket with $300 in it, depending on how that parish chooses to do it, it would either be tallied with the rest of the anonymous contributions, or perhaps get its own line item as an anonymous contribution. Does the parish really have any additional obligation? The only difficulty I can imagine is if someone months later comes forward claiming to be the contributor, and wanting a receipt at that point (a request which I assume would be refused).

If anything, it seems slightly easier than a contribution where the name or envelope number is indicated, which then must be carefully tallied to that individual contributor, not to mention the paperwork sent out at the end of the year.

 

[Loboto-Me]

Due to our scattered finances (feast or famine) we prefer to use our envelope with physical money inside. Our bank account isn’t always in the black and automatic debit would not be very good for our situation as we might have other bills coming in that need paying.

Some weeks we can put 50.00 or 100.00 in our envelope (that hasn’t happened in 2 year now) and other weeks we can only contribute 5.00. Like I said, pretty scattered.

I’ve always felt guilty when visiting other parishes though because we give to that parish through the “visiting” envelope rather than to our home parish.

I feel that the instant debit form is great for people who have weekly and steady paying jobs but not so much for those of us who get paid sporatically like us.

 

[FrDavid96]

I don’t understand why this is such a difficult position. If someone drops a blank envelope in the basket with $300 in it, depending on how that parish chooses to do it, it would either be tallied with the rest of the anonymous contributions, or perhaps get its own line item as an anonymous contribution. Does the parish really have any additional obligation? The only difficulty I can imagine is if someone months later comes forward claiming to be the contributor, and wanting a receipt at that point (a request which I assume would be refused).

If anything, it seems slightly easier than a contribution where the name or envelope number is indicated, which then must be carefully tallied to that individual contributor, not to mention the paperwork sent out at the end of the year.

No. The parish doesn’t have any “additional obligation.” I’m not saying this is earth-shattering, so don’t take “difficult position” too literally. I’m merely trying to explain how this sort of thing is done, to help answer some questions that people have posed–that’s all.

 

[mgbenner]

Question- I get the sense that our parish priest wants everyone to pay via envelope at the offertory. I have an automated electronic payment get sent from my bank acct to the church’s. Inevermiss a payment- and it saves on paper and processing.

Does anyone see a problem with this? Has anyone run into a problem with this?

We have our kids each throw in a dollar to the basket-but we don’t use the envelope. Sometimes we may even forget to bring the spare dollars for the kids.

Actually, there’s no need for you to discontinue this practice at all. The majority of pastors ask that you use the envelope for only one reason - so that they’re able to track attendance, since the envelopes are generally printed with your family name when you’re a registered member of the parish. And that’s solely for practical purposes. So keep making your offering the way you have been and just drop your envelope into the basket during the offering - that way, they know you were there.