Is being Pastor/Parish Priest for Your Parish His Only Paid Job?

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SMHW

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The title pretty much says it all.

For your parish, is your Pastor/Parish Priest holding down a full time position working for your parish? Or does he have another regular job? (I don’t mean occasional Masses/sacraments for other parishes for which he gets a stipend. I mean situations where the diocese and/or a religious order has assigned him to both a parish and some other position.)

For my parish, our pastor is also a professor at the seminary. In fact, seminary professor was his first job. He had to get special permission to also be a pastor. He was our parish administrator for two years before being installed as pastor.

In fact, all “our priests” have other jobs. One is another seminary professor who regularly helps out by saying Mass at our parish and also acts as a liturgy adviser. Another is the chaplain for the local military bases. I’m not sure if he is even technically assigned to our parish but he and his wife were parishioners before he was ordained and his wife is a parishioner. (Can a priest be considered a parishioner?)
 
SMHW said:
The title pretty much says it all.

For your parish, is your Pastor/Parish Priest holding down a full time position working for your parish? Or does he have another regular job? (I don’t mean occasional Masses/sacraments for other parishes for which he gets a stipend. I mean situations where the diocese and/or a religious order has assigned him to both a parish and some other position.)

For my parish, our pastor is also a professor at the seminary. In fact, seminary professor was his first job. He had to get special permission to also be a pastor. He was our parish administrator for two years before being installed as pastor.

In fact, all “our priests” have other jobs. One is another seminary professor who regularly helps out by saying Mass at our parish and also acts as a liturgy adviser. Another is the chaplain for the local military bases. I’m not sure if he is even technically assigned to our parish but he and his wife were parishioners before he was ordained and his wife is a parishioner. (Can a priest be considered a parishioner?)
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:confused:
 
Was the married priest you speak of a minister in another denomination before converting to Catholicism?

As for me, I don’t know my pastor very well, but I don’t think he has another job. The parish I used to attend, I am almost positive the pastor didn’t have another job. I knew him a little better.
 
Our priest is pastor of three parishes. So, yes, he has 3 full time jobs. :eek:
 
Our parish is very small (less than 20 families) and cannot support our priest and his family. We don’t even have a rectory. We really couldn’t support a priest who didn’t have a family. Our priest works full-time as a hospice chaplain and also says Mass as at a Latin Rite parish 2 mornings per week. Sometimes he also assists in hearing confessions at that parish, where his brother-in-law is the pastor.
 
Yep. The married priest was a former Episcopalian “priest” who was ordained via the Pastoral Provision.

I’d say my parish’s priest situation is not the norm. Priests from seminaries, religious orders, schools, etc. often do have regular assignments at nearby parishes so they can help out saying Masses, especially on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. And I know that priests (including pastors) may teach an occasional class, chair a committee, or hold a position on a marriage tribunal. But those jobs are usually temporary or very part-time.

Of course there are too many situations like what 1ke mentions where a single priest is pastor to multiple parishes.

I suppose priests who are members of religious orders and also pastors could be said to hold multiple full-time positions
 
Ours does Dentistry on the side. Or at least he pulls out wiggly teeth for the parish children 😛

I’d hesitate to call it employment, as he actually PAYS the patient a dollar a tooth, two bucks for the first tooth.

He does an incredible amount of business though :cool:
 
one priest in my diocese is the bishop’s MC, and also a vicar in a parish.
 
SMHW said:
Yep. The married priest was a former Episcopalian “priest” who was ordained via the Pastoral Provision.

I’d say my parish’s priest situation is not the norm. Priests from seminaries, religious orders, schools, etc. often do have regular assignments at nearby parishes so they can help out saying Masses, especially on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. And I know that priests (including pastors) may teach an occasional class, chair a committee, or hold a position on a marriage tribunal. But those jobs are usually temporary or very part-time.

Of course there are too many situations like what 1ke mentions where a single priest is pastor to multiple parishes.

I suppose priests who are members of religious orders and also pastors could be said to hold multiple full-time positions
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I love hearing stories about married priests who converted. God is so good.
 
Usually Roman Catholic dioceses are larger, have more parishioners, and thus can fully financially support their parish priest. Although sometimes just because of the nature of education the priest received, it might be beneficial for him and other future priests that he also teach in the local seminary or even a course in a local school. On the other hand, Eastern Catholic dioceses are smaller in congregation size, sometimes not enough to financially support the priest. So there are a lot of Eastern Catholic and even Orthodox priests who have secular day jobs just to make ends meet. And I am not talking about teaching religion, I’m talking about working at the local Walmart.
 
Yes, all of our regularly assigned priests (pastor and two associates) are full time at our parish. We also have a priest in residence who is retired from another assignment and may still teach a bit, but not full time.

I do not believe there are any pastors in my diocese who have another assignment. The chaplains for the Catholic high schools and the college chaplains may also be associates, but not pastors.
 
ConstantineTG said:
. So there are a lot of Eastern Catholic and even Orthodox priests who have secular day jobs just to make ends meet. And I am not talking about teaching religion, I’m talking about working at the local Walmart.
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I used to work with an Eastern Orthodox priest. He was pastor of a parish of about 150 families. He and his wife had six kids. When we worked together, he worked in the applicaiton testing area of our IT deptment.

He left to be a teacher at a local high school (of computer science)
 
Our Pastor is also on the Marriage Tribunal so I suspect ours is not the only paycheque he receives.

A former Pastor had been a school teacher and he took on substitute work whenever he could get it. Some weeks we hardly saw him he was so busy substituting. It didn’t make the Bishop happy.
 
Phemie said:
A former Pastor had been a school teacher and he took on substitute work whenever he could get it. Some weeks we hardly saw him he was so busy substituting. It didn’t make the Bishop happy.
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I’m pretty sure a priest has to have permission from the Bishop to hold a secular job.
 
Some of the priests in my diocese also have other “jobs”. A few teach either at the HS or college level, some work at the “pastoral center” (what we call our chancery), a couple who are social workers/counselors have “private practice hours” and there are a few who are full-time chaplains at hospitals, jails or colleges. We have a few writers.

I do know that many of the priests that I know are also involved in organizations that take up some of their time. One is a past-president of the Canon Law Society. A couple are very involved with the KofC, a couple work with Project Rachel, some in Marriage Encounter. A few sit on the Board of Director’s of various charities & organizations. Many of these positions come with no pay, but some may offer a stipend or travel expenses to cover out-of-pocket costs when doing things for the particular organization.
 
Brendan said:
I used to work with an Eastern Orthodox priest. He was pastor of a parish of about 150 families. He and his wife had six kids. When we worked together, he worked in the applicaiton testing area of our IT deptment.

He left to be a teacher at a local high school (of computer science)
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When I realized this is happening I told myself not to be harsh on my coworkers during meetings. I could be yelling at a priest 😃
 
Note that most diocesan priests do have functions within the diocese outside their parish. So they have work other than pastoral work for their parish.
 
Oneofthewomen said:
Some of the priests in my diocese also have other “jobs”. A few teach either at the HS or college level, some work at the “pastoral center” (what we call our chancery), a couple who are social workers/counselors have “private practice hours” and there are a few who are full-time chaplains at hospitals, jails or colleges. We have a few writers.

I do know that many of the priests that I know are also involved in organizations that take up some of their time. One is a past-president of the Canon Law Society. A couple are very involved with the KofC, a couple work with Project Rachel, some in Marriage Encounter. A few sit on the Board of Director’s of various charities & organizations. Many of these positions come with no pay, but some may offer a stipend or travel expenses to cover out-of-pocket costs when doing things for the particular organization.
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It was once the case that priests who held some of the more time consuming jobs you’ve mentioned were not allowed to be pastors of parishes. (Associates yes, but not pastors.) Times have changed.
 
babochka said:
I’m pretty sure a priest has to have permission from the Bishop to hold a secular job.
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Maybe in the real world but around here things like that seem to be ignored.

The bishop told this guy, in our presence, “I didn’t send you here to teach!” but they had been best friends since their seminary days and unless the bishop pulled rank and gave an official edict such as “As your bishop I order you to no longer offer your services to teach in the local schools,” there is no way he was going to stop. He’s now Pastor of the parish in which the school at which he substitutes is located. He’s still teaching as often as they call him. The new bishop has not chosen to do anything because at least now the teaching has him in the community he’s serving.
 
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