Do you think our Catholic church need to get rid of stipends?

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Augustinian said:
With the amount of casino gambling out there, and with the amount of paper money that the church receives, I’d say embezzling in on the upswing. Although not necessarily with priests.

I think there was one priest around here, but there have been other staff that have done this kind of thing near Pittsburgh
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Judas is always there and everywhere. Just remember that 🙏
 
Tis_Bearself said:
That’s disturbing. I seem to recall we were asked to pay the musician separately. We also arranged and paid for our pre-Cana separately (it was an “Engaged Encounter” weekend). I assumed the check we gave to the priest paid for the use of the church space and his services. I really would not want to write one check that covered all these things in one big batch.
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One organist in church choir group said to me. I will never take money from church activity. We are not street performers…
 
midori said:
If I want to give my ox a carrot in gratitude for a personal service rendered beyond the ordinary services performed for the parish at large, I don’t think other people should have a problem with it.
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Sadly I don’t see our parish pastor like that but as the servant of God who gives us free for all things.
 
PoorChurchForThePoor said:
One organist in church choir group said to me. I will never take money from church activity. We are not street performers…
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That’s all well and good, but there’s not really a storehouse of trained organists who are independently well-off enough that they can volunteer their time every single weekend in perpetuity. I know a lot depends on the parish and the talent pool, but in some cases, having volunteer musicians just means that the Church becomes a lower priority. If they are receiving payment (however modest it might be), there is a stronger level of commitment. Some people don’t need that financial component to be committed and invested. But some do.
 
Well, technically, it’s not my ox. He’s God’s ox. I get to be the grain he’s stepping all over. But it’s Paul’s analogy, not mine. 😛
 
It is an idyllic fantasy that the early church had no money. Wealthy women were supporting the Church from the get-go. Yes, it did take money to support the Church, and yes the bible talks of supporting the laborers in their work.

This is the origin of the stipend, in case people weren’t aware of that.
 
PoorChurchForThePoor said:
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Tis_Bearself:
That’s disturbing. I seem to recall we were asked to pay the musician separately. We also arranged and paid for our pre-Cana separately (it was an “Engaged Encounter” weekend). I assumed the check we gave to the priest paid for the use of the church space and his services. I really would not want to write one check that covered all these things in one big batch.
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One organist in church choir group said to me. I will never take money from church activity. We are not street performers…
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🤨

So what should professional organists do? Should they have a day job so they can afford to play at the church?

Oh, wait.

Most funerals are during the business day.

If you’re voulenteering that’s all well and good. But no voulenteer, part-time musician is going to be able to dedicate the necessary time to their craft as a professional does. Learning a new song that the congregation hears for 3 minutes is often hours of work.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
So what should professional organists do? Should they have a day job so they can afford to play at the church?
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Hahaha, yes. I know several professional musicians who are Catholic, but hate the fact that music ministry is so poorly compensated in the Catholic parishes, in comparison to, say, your Baptists. Or they hire on as Music Director with a very distinct job description of a, b, and c— and all of a sudden, they’re supposed to be volunteering an extra 20 hours per week on d, e, f, g, h, and i, which weren’t part of the original agreement.

If you want a volunteer amateur, you can have a volunteer amateur. If you want a paid professional, you can hire a paid professional, and compensate them accordingly. But just because you run into a few artistes who faint at the thought of sullying Art with Money— it doesn’t make it acceptable to say, “I know you love playing music! So you can come play music at my wedding! For free! And won’t that be awesome!” 🙂
 
midori said:
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Xanthippe_Voorhees:
So what should professional organists do? Should they have a day job so they can afford to play at the church?
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Hahaha, yes. I know several professional musicians who are Catholic, but hate the fact that music ministry is so poorly compensated in the Catholic parishes, in comparison to, say, your Baptists. Or they hire on as Music Director with a very distinct job description of a, b, and c— and all of a sudden, they’re supposed to be volunteering an extra 20 hours per week on d, e, f, g, h, and i, which weren’t part of the original agreement.

If you want a volunteer amateur, you can have a volunteer amateur. If you want a paid professional, you can hire a paid professional, and compensate them accordingly. But just because you run into a few artistes who faint at the thought of sullying Art with Money— it doesn’t make it acceptable to say, “I know you love playing music! So you can come play music at my wedding! For free! And won’t that be awesome!” 🙂
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Because of this pervasive attitude, my brother now works as a software engineer, rather than his chosen profession and what he went to school for which was classical music and sound engineering.

My SIL is piecing together a livelihood in music. She gets about 3 times as much from the Protestant churches Sunday services than she would from the Catholics. So the Catholic church is left with a tune-deaf granny playing and she plays for the protestant church.

You know—becuase being able to eat is kinda important.
 
Sure. But the early Church didn’t go off and spend $50k+ on a Master’s degree in music.

I can volunteer as much of my time, talent, and treasure as I want to. But I’m not going to tell someone else how much time, talent, and treasure I expect from them.

If I want to go play the piano for free, I’ll do it. 😛 But I’m not going to expect a professional anything to do anything for free. They may do it for love, and that’s very charitable of them. My church is poor and rural and has enough difficulties-- they don’t have it in their budget to pay someone $100-$200/service, or whatever the going rate is these days. But if you have parishes of tens of thousands of families, with four/five/six Masses on Sunday— I expect them to understand that the laborer is worth his wage.
 
midori said:
Sure. But the early Church didn’t go off and spend $50k+ on a Master’s degree in music.
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People that work in the lively arts often have a hard time making a living at it- this is by no means confined just to church musicians.

Taking a regular job is just part of life for most musicians and poets and artists.

Too much of a struggle, at least among the majority who need to work to live
 
Duesenberg said:
Yes. I remember sitting in line for confession and seeing a donation box on display that said “Alms for Father Ron.” That chilled me.
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pnewton said:
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Duesenberg:
Yes. I remember sitting in line for confession and seeing a donation box on display that said “Alms for Father Ron.” That chilled me.
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Gee. That chills me just reading about it.
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That depends on context.

Who is “Father Ron?”

If he is the priest in the confessional, that might (just might) be problematic.

If “Father Ron” is a priest known to the local community to be someone doing some charity work, there’s no problem.

If the same box said “alms for Sister Theresa’s orphanage” no one would think twice.

Maybe it’s for “Father Ron’s soup kitchen founded by Fr Ron, our late pastor who died in 1937” and everyone in the parish already knows this.

Context people. Context.
 
midori said:
… it doesn’t make it acceptable to say, “I know you love playing music! So you can come play music at my wedding! For free! And won’t that be awesome!” 🙂
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And said musician should say to the groom “I know you’re an accountant and you love doing accounting, so next April, you can do my taxes for free!” and say to the bride “I know you’re an architect and you love designing houses, so you can design my next house for free! and won’t that just be awesome!”
 
Duesenberg said:
He was the priest in the confessional. A mendicant at that.
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So what is the problem? He is supported by begging.

I don’t read that he assigned any penance of “put $ in my box” so how is this a problem?

Was he a visitor to that parish?
 
Duesenberg said:
Given the sign’s positioning relative to those in the queue for the sacrament, one couldn’t help but at least wonder if forgiveness was for sale on that day?
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Like I said earlier, raising money is a tricky business. To give this the most charitable spin, and one I think likely, the box was placed at a blank spot on the wall with no thought of where the confessional was. Signs with ironic placement is kind of an internet meme. Maybe this was the case here.
 
Duesenberg said:
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FrDavid96:
So what is the problem? He is supported by begging.
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It looked horrible. Truly hideous.

Given the sign’s positioning relative to those in the queue for the sacrament, one couldn’t help but at least wonder if forgiveness was for sale on that day?

Go ahead and try to defend the undefendable.
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Ok. You’re right. He should have put the donation box in a broom closet where no one would be scandalized by seeing it.
 
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