Gregorian masses stipends

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ineeda2

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My mother passed away 11/2018. I would like to have Gregorian masses said for her. I found a priest that is from bi-ritual and has Gregorian masses. The stipend is only $100. Why is there such a difference in stipends. I usually use Seraphic Mass Association for mass requests. Their stipend is $240. And, others are $300.
Why such a difference in stipends?
 
It’s great that you are going to have Gregorian Masses said for your mom.

The reasons why the stipends vary include:
  1. Cost of Living for the priest saying the Masses: Priests generally use the stipends for their support, and a priest in the Near East or the Philippines has a lower cost of living and therefore a smaller Mass stipend can go pretty far for him. If the priest is in USA or some other more developed country then he will probably need a larger stipend.
  2. Sharing the stipend with a supporting organization: I know from experience if you request Gregorian Masses from a certain organization directly, then the stipend is less than if you go through your diocese, which apparently takes part of the stipend for the diocese. I don’t know why this is but I know it’s true because I looked into how to request the Masses directly from the organization (very well-known mission organization) and the stipend was significantly lower than if I used my diocese to request them from the same organization. The same is true for some monasteries and other organizations that pass the requests on to the missions. Part of your donation goes to the organization and part goes to the mission.
  3. Demand: Certain monasteries and churches that cannot handle a lot of Gregorian Masses (because they don’t have the personnel) will ask for higher stipends and I believe this serves to reduce the number of requests they get. It is understood you are making a fairly generous gift for the support of the monastery or church in question.
Often you will pay the lowest stipends if you simply find a willing priest who agrees to take your request, as you did.
I have had a lot of Gregorian Masses said and I try to “spread the wealth” between different groups and I agree with you, the stipends are all over the place from about $100 at the low end up to $500.
 
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Because there are 30 Masses on 30 days.

Most parishes in the United States ask for $10 per Mass. In other countries, the stipend might be less.

Now, besides cost of living differences in different counties, I can think of a few different reasons for lower stipends.
  1. priests may one accept one stipend per day. If he prays more than one mass each day, he MIGHT be willing to accept a smaller stipend if has more than one Mass each day.
  2. different dioceses might have different rules when it comes to Gregorian Masses. In other words the Bishop might require a lower stipend per day for Gregorian Masses. Or perhaps one diocese has a lower stipend for pastoral reasons.
  3. perhaps the priest (on his own) thinks $300 is too high, so he lowers the per diem stipend for Gregorian Masses?
it could be a number of things. However, it really should not be more than $10 per diem.

God Bless
 
Tis_Bearself said:
then the stipend is less than if you go through your diocese, which apparently takes part of the stipend for the diocese.
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as FYI - from what I’ve been told, it’s not that the diocese takes the stipend, it’s that priests may not accept more than $10 per day in stipends ($3650 per year max). If a priest prays more than one mass in a day OR if he pays one mass for multiple intentions, he is only allowed to keep $10 per day.

The rest of the money collected for that day is then given to the diocese for the diocese to give to priests who did not receive a stipend that day.

In other words, when priests receive more stypinds then they can handle, they share them with other priests in the diocese to who are not receivings mass requests.

Bottom line, the diocese is not taking a cut. They are simply helping the priests to divy up the requests.

I hope I’m making sense.

God bless
 
phil19034 said:
The rest of the money collected for that day is then given to the diocese for the diocese to give to priests who did not receive a stipend that day.
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What you are saying is correct if these were just regular Masses said by the diocesan priest in the diocese I’m arranging them through, but you’re missing the point here.
If I arrange Gregorian Masses through Diocese X (my home diocese in a distant state), they ship the request to Well Known Charitable Organization (WKCO), and they ask for a higher “suggested donation” than if I go directly to WKCO. It’s pretty obvious the diocese is taking a cut of the donation, whether that’s for administration or whatever, and then passing the request along to the WKCO, who passes it to one of their mission priests. The priest who is ultimately saying the Mass in Africa, Asia, or a remote island somewhere, is likely getting the same stipend regardless of whether I go through the diocese or directly to the WKCO.

I know this because when I saw a discrepancy between the suggested donation for Gregorian Masses arranged with WKCO via my Diocese X, and arranged with the WKCO directly, I called both Diocese X and the WKCO to find out what was going on, and after some flubbering on the part of the diocesan staff lady, I ended up speaking to a very helpful sister at the WKCO and sending them, directly, checks for their lower “suggested donation” for 2 sets of Gregorian Masses so they could arrange the Masses directly with their mission priests. Like I said I have done a lot of these Gregorian Masses with at least 20 different organizations and have talked to a lot of their people because often the person receiving the donation calls me or messages me to tell me when the Masses will start.

In my experience, Gregorian Masses are never said by diocesan priests in the USA unless you “know somebody”. They simply don’t have enough priests to say these Masses and it would be seen as an unjust hogging of Mass intentions by the person donating for the Gregorian Mass. Therefore, it is not a case of priest X in USA can only take one Mass stipend and the diocese gets the rest. The diocesan priests in USA are not going to be saying the Masses.

Now if Mission Priest in Mission Diocese in Africa has more than one stipend for the day then maybe he needs to donate the excess to his own diocese, but that has no impact on me because I’m not arranging the Masses through his diocese and I never communicate with his diocese.
phil19034 said:
Bottom line, the diocese is not taking a cut. They are simply helping the priests to divy up the requests.
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Respectfully disagree. You aren’t the person who actually talked to the particular diocese and WKCO in this instance, I am. Also, I believe you’re in the Philly archdiocese and this was a different diocese some distance away, so I don’t know how you would have any idea how they run their business of arranging Gregorian Masses through the WKCO.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
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phil19034:
The rest of the money collected for that day is then given to the diocese for the diocese to give to priests who did not receive a stipend that day.
Click to expand...
What you are saying is correct if these were just regular Masses said by the diocesan priest in the diocese I’m arranging them through, but you’re missing the point here.
If I arrange Gregorian Masses through Diocese X (my home diocese in a distant state), they ship the request to Well Known Charitable Organization (WKCO), and they ask for a higher “suggested donation” than if I go directly to WKCO. It’s pretty obvious the diocese is taking a cut of the donation, whether that’s for administration or whatever, and then passing the request along to the WKCO, who passes it to one of their mission priests. The priest who is ultimately saying the Mass in Africa, Asia, or a remote island somewhere, is likely getting the same stipend regardless of whether I go through the diocese or directly to the WKCO.

I know this because when I saw a discrepancy between the suggested donation for Gregorian Masses …
directly with their mission priests. Like I said I have done a lot of these Gregorian Masses with at least 20 different organizations and have talked to a lot of their people because often the person receiving the donation calls me or messages me to tell me when the Masses will start.

In my experience, Gregorian Masses are never said by diocesan priests in the USA unless you “know somebody”. They simply don’t have enough priests to say these Masses and it would be seen as an unjust hogging of Mass intentions by the person donating for the Gregorian Mass. Therefore, it is not a case of priest X in USA can only take one Mass stipend and the diocese gets the rest. The diocesan priests in USA are not going to be saying the Masses.

Now if Mission Priest in Mission Diocese in Africa has more than one stipend for the day then maybe he needs to donate the excess to his own diocese, but that has no impact on me because I’m not arranging the Masses through his diocese and I never communicate with his diocese.
phil19034 said:
Bottom line, the diocese is not taking a cut. They are simply helping the priests to divy up the requests.
Click to expand...
Respectfully disagree. You aren’t the person who actually talked to the particular diocese and WKCO in this instance, I am. Also, I believe you’re in the Philly archdiocese and this was a different diocese some distance away, so I don’t know how you would have any idea how they run their business of arranging Gregorian Masses through the WKCO.
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hmmm. I see what your saying now, I missed the part about them sending the stipend outside of both the diocese & country. I was thinking about what happens when leaves the parish but stays inside the diocese.

Honestly, now I’m more curious. I wonder what happens to the money they don’t sent to the mission diocese? My Monsignor told me that stipends are all regulated by canon law. 🤔
 
phil19034 said:
Honestly, now I’m more curious. I wonder what happens to the money they don’t sent to the mission diocese? My Monsignor told me that stipends are all regulated by canon law. 🤔
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I was a bit bothered about that too and that was one reason I reached out directly to the charity to reserve the Gregorian Masses directly with them. (The other reason being some significant saving of $, I cannot tell a lie.)
Me being bothered doesn’t mean anything hinky was necessarily going on, it could have been just bad communication from the Diocese staff lady, but I was more comfortable just dealing direct with the organization.
 
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Anyone know where I can have Gregorian Masses said in the Extraordinary Form?
 
Perhaps an FSSP parish, if there is not a parish in your diocese saying the EF? My suggestion of the FSSP is that even though the EF may be offered in your dioceses, there may not be anyone saying an EF Mass every day; if the Gregorian Masses presume 30 Masses in 30 days, the priest there may not be able to accommodate the request.
 
I found it. Clear Creek Abbey has done so in the past, but you have to write them for info to see if they will do Gregorian Masses now. I think I contacted them once and got a form letter back that said they were not accepting Gregorian Mass intentions at this time. I suspect that they got an overabundance of requests since it’s not easy to find traditional Latin Gregorian Masses, and their name was being shared on several forums of traditionalists as a source for the Gregorian Masses in Latin.


There is also a group called Society of the Holy Family in Colorado that will do them (suggested donation about 900 dollars), but I understand that their local bishop does not consider them to be in communion with the Church right now.

Also there’s the autocephalous church bi-ritual priest Fr. Harry. I notice he has recently gotten a better website, but I am a little leery of autocephalous churches even when they say they are under the Pope.
 
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otjm said:
Perhaps an FSSP parish, if there is not a parish in your diocese saying the EF? My suggestion of the FSSP is that even though the EF may be offered in your dioceses, there may not be anyone saying an EF Mass every day; if the Gregorian Masses presume 30 Masses in 30 days, the priest there may not be able to accommodate the request.
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I’ll ask my local FSSP parish, but I don’t think the FSSP does them.
 
I am a bit leery with those, too. The stipend is more affordable, but something just has me wondering.
 
Might I suggest CNEWA? The stipend is a little more ($150), but CNEWA is one of Pope Francis’ favorite charities, totally on the up and up, has a very easy-to-use process, and will send you a card and all that.


There is also a Filipino organization called Prayer Warriors of the Holy Souls, which has a slightly lower stipend ($135) and is reliable as well, but you would need to pay them with Paypal, and I know some people don’t like to use Paypal. I do not recommend sending them a check, too much risk of it getting lost or stolen.


I have used both of these a couple times.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Also there’s the autocephalous church bi-ritual priest Fr. Harry. I notice he has recently gotten a better website, but I am a little leery of autocephalous churches even when they say they are under the Pope.
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FYI - I did some research on “Fr Harry.” Turns out he’s NOT in communion with the Pope.

He is part of the of the Russian Orthodox Church in America and he’s actually a Bishop too. However, it is true that he’s bi-ritual due to his participation in a Catholic / Easter Orthodox ecumenical group.
 
otjm said:
Perhaps an FSSP parish, if there is not a parish in your diocese saying the EF? My suggestion of the FSSP is that even though the EF may be offered in your dioceses, there may not be anyone saying an EF Mass every day; if the Gregorian Masses presume 30 Masses in 30 days, the priest there may not be able to accommodate the request.
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I checked with my local FSSP parish. The pastor said that at this time the FSSP doesn’t do Gregorian Masses because the vast majority of their priests are all in parish work
 
Thanks for doing the research on him. While I’m sure the Lord hears his prayers, based on what you wrote it doesn’t appear he’s qualified to say Catholic Gregorian Masses.

That’s too bad about Clear Creek. If I find another traditional place taking requests, I will let you know. I think if you inquire through the Conshohocken FSSP parish they might be able to hook you up, though.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Thanks for doing the research on him. While I’m sure the Lord hears his prayers, based on what you wrote it doesn’t appear he’s qualified to say Catholic Gregorian Masses.
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He’s apparently qualified to do them for Catholics in schism, but not in full communion with the Pope. 😳
 
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