Giving and parish fund collection? Ideas

[YADA]

I a sorry but I just do not believe that te average parish CATHOLIC priest makes $70K

From: umsl.edu/services/govdocs/ooh20002001/248.htm

Diocesan priests’ salaries vary from diocese to diocese. According to the National Federation of Priests’ Council, low-end cash only salaries averaged $12,936 per year in 1998; high-end salaries averaged $15,483 per year. Average salaries, including in-kind earnings, were $30,713 per year in 1998. In addition to a salary, diocesan priests receive a package of benefits that may include a car allowance, room and board in the parish rectory, health insurance, and a retirement plan.
Diocesan priests who do special work related to the church, such as teaching, usually receive a salary which is less than a lay person in the same position would receive. The difference between the usual salary for these jobs and the salary that the priest receives is called “contributed service.” In some situations, housing and related expenses may be provided; in other cases, the priest must make his own arrangements. Some priests doing special work receive the same compensation that a lay person would receive.
Religious priests take a vow of poverty and are supported by their religious order. Any personal earnings are given to the order. Their vow of poverty is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service, which exempts them from paying Federal income tax.

You must have mis-understood the article, the articlle was wrong or the article was speaking to the religious of another faith community.

In my experience when people base there charitable support for the church upon what they believe “others” earn, contribute or some other criteria, they are using excuses to cover for their lack of charity.

Bishop Fulton Sheen spoke about a dinner he had once in a parish. A young priest kept talking about the “riches of the church and shouldn’t the church sell of its surpluses ad take care of the poor” Bishop SHeen said the entire meal was this topic in a variety of forms. After about an hour, he took the young priest into another room and asked him quietly how long he [the priest] had been “stealing from the Sunday collection”. Bishop Sheen said the poor young priest cired his heart out, the sin of theft had left him miserable…

 

[Damascus]

It was a figure for Chicago priests. I will try to google or e mail the editor.

 

[the_phoenix]

What seems to work for fund-raising in my parish is that the priests giving the sermon have their prioirities straight. Each and every Sunday, we lay people can expect to receive a heartfelt invitation from the altar to spend some time with Our Eucharistic Lord in the parish’s John Paul II Perpetual Adoration Chapel. Or on the rare occasion where the chapel is not mentioned, we receive an invitation to the Confessional. God Himself takes first place, the money follows.

What also has attracted me personally to give my Sunday offering and fund-raising money to this parish rather than to the parish I left is, the higher degree of reverence for Our Lord shown at Mass by priests and laity alike.

On another note … $70,000 is an actual average salary for priests ?!? Wowee! Certainly not in Northeast Ohio! At least that’s not the feeling I got when a priest at an outspokenly pro-life parish I used to attend made the following comment during the Clinton years in a sermon: “Because the Catholic Church opposes partial birth abortion, the government wants to raise taxes on the salary of Catholic priests. Well, let them raise taxes all they want … I already make next to nothing. Pretty soon, there’ll be nothing left for them to take!”

And on another note, not all priests are money-grubbing. A distant relative of mine, Father Charles, is a retired missionary now living in community at the home of his order. When he first retired and I sent him a monetary gift, he wrote back his thanks along with the words, "But I don’t need the money, they take very good care of me here … " and he went on to try to discourage me from sending money. Since then, on sending him money at Christmas or Easter, he writes back thanking me with these words, “Because they already take good care of me here, I have sent the money to our missions overseas.”

Good greetings to all thread participants!

~~ the phoenix