priests and cars

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zab said:
Our former pastor drove an old chevy and he was saving up money to buy a new car. (He didn’t want to buy on credit and have to pay extra for the interest). He had nearly $10,000 saved up to buy a much needed new car. But suddenly was faced with a major building project. It was decided that we were going to build a new school. So the pastor donated his $10,000 savings to the building project. But all worked out well because when our local car dealer found out about his generosity towards the building fund, well his wife had a hand in convincing him to donate a new car to the pastor.
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Well Glory to God!
That’s a man of faith.
 
The FSSP priests seem to have nice cars. Our parish priest has a Subaru Forester 2010 model.
 
zab said:
Our former pastor drove an old chevy and he was saving up money to buy a new car. (He didn’t want to buy on credit and have to pay extra for the interest). He had nearly $10,000 saved up to buy a much needed new car. But suddenly was faced with a major building project. It was decided that we were going to build a new school. So the pastor donated his $10,000 savings to the building project. But all worked out well because when our local car dealer found out about his generosity towards the building fund, well his wife had a hand in convincing him to donate a new car to the pastor.
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That is so awesome!
 
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some dioceses had fleet arrangements with dealerships: For a certain cost, the dealership provides a certain number of cars with specific lease terms, including maintenance packages. A member of the parish staff takes the car in for maintenance or servicing at specific intervals, and it gets budgeted out to the diocese instead of part of the parish’s budget. That way, less affluent parishes can have a reliable later model vehicle, and the priest wouldn’t be paying for it out of his own compensation package. Naturally, parishes would be sending a certain amount of their receipts to the diocese, and that could be assessed equitably for each parish depending on each parish’s relative affluence. With a fleet of vehicles, leased or purchased, the diocese would get a break in bulk fleet prices. Because they’d be leasing or selling to a charitable organization, the dealership might be eligible for a tax break on the income from the fleet. Everybody wins!

You’d only have a problem if there were a priest or two who were really bad drivers! Those guys? Assign them a driver, or give 'em a bicycle–LOL!😃
 
I would have no issue with them driving a nice car. Then again I cannot judge the priest if he drives something nice, for all we know it could have been donated (or given to him) by a private person/family member as a gift or a local car dealer. In most areas, a car is needed to attend to sick calls and hospital visits plus be able to go various places outside the parish as in my diocese most priests do not live on church premises in a rectory but nearby the parish in a private dwelling of some kind. I even read a long time ago, there was a local priest in my area who sometimes rode his motorcycle to sick calls & visiting parishioners that were home bound or confined to hospitals/nursing homes but now that he is older, he drives a car instead of the motorcycle
 
It’s all relative.

To someone who has to drive a beater due to insufficient funds, any car that starts everytime and runs reliably is an “expensive” car.

To me, any car made by the Japanese is expensive, because we always buy the cheapest American cars we can find. We also do not buy used cars anymore, because my husband is not an auto mechanic and we end up spending more money on the repairs than we would just buying a new car with a great maintenance contract.

My standard for “expensive car” is a new car over $12,000. Yet nowadays, that’s almost impossible to find in new models, and I’m afraid we will have to change our thinking unless our U.S. culture changes and people start demanding and driving cheaper cars.

Something else to consider is safety. I have lots of friends who refuse to drive a “cheap” car because they consider them more dangerous. I can understand that, especially when it comes to our precious priests. Big ol’ honkin’ Cadillacs are a lot safer than the little ol’ Ford Focus!

I think that there are a lot of congregations who strive to provide their priest with a good vehicle because they see him as representing Jesus Christ, and we wouldn’t let Jesus drive around in a beater!

One of our parish priests had a bad-boy Harley Davidson motorcycle (along with a car–you can’t drive a motorcycle in Northern Illinois in the dead of winter)! Funny–he was the most “traditional” priest that I have ever been privileged to know, and yet, he drove that Harley! 🙂
 
A seminarian who visited our parish drove up in a Camero. Come to find out, his father was a state trooper and the car was a sell-off from the state fleet when it was retired. His eyes lit up when he said, “It’s still got the souped up engine from when it was a cop car. It’s really fast!”
 
HonoraDominum said:
A seminarian who visited our parish drove up in a Camero. Come to find out, his father was a state trooper and the car was a sell-off from the state fleet when it was retired. His eyes lit up when he said, “It’s still got the souped up engine from when it was a cop car. It’s really fast!”
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:rotfl:

And I’m presuming the extra power is used to get to Last Rites in time. :D:p
 
odile53 said:
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some dioceses had fleet arrangements with dealerships: For a certain cost, the dealership provides a certain number of cars with specific lease terms, including maintenance packages. A member of the parish staff takes the car in for maintenance or servicing at specific intervals, and it gets budgeted out to the diocese instead of part of the parish’s budget. That way, less affluent parishes can have a reliable later model vehicle, and the priest wouldn’t be paying for it out of his own compensation package. Naturally, parishes would be sending a certain amount of their receipts to the diocese, and that could be assessed equitably for each parish depending on each parish’s relative affluence. With a fleet of vehicles, leased or purchased, the diocese would get a break in bulk fleet prices. Because they’d be leasing or selling to a charitable organization, the dealership might be eligible for a tax break on the income from the fleet. Everybody wins!

You’d only have a problem if there were a priest or two who were really bad drivers! Those guys? Assign them a driver, or give 'em a bicycle–LOL!😃
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I would be surprised if a diocese had such arrangements. Most dioceses have their priests working as independent contractors.

It is the parish that covers the costs of the priest, not the diocese.
 
We have a Local priest who drives a small c class Benz …but!!! A. It’s the entry level car…b it was low mile pre own. C. It came from a devout member of our Parish who owns the MBC dealership. D. Most important…he works out of our Chancery office and the nature of his capacity involves A LOT of road time…he tried to refuse it but…mike who has the Dealership insisted since its very solid…safe…and very reliable …so given these factors I cant se begrudging this…hey it’s not like S 500 Super AMG benzo at 150,000 and change I think a c basic…new is in 30,000+ range new but…this is pre owned …the priest does love music …so he has Sirius and loves jazz …but…shhhhh…he. Doesn’t know it’s subscription ! Lol…not joking…Mike is a buddy…so he and I pay the Sirius and they have mikes Phon # hey this guy is on the road 8 days a week lol (Beatles fans tribute) at 10-11 hour stretches he deserves it!(-::)🙂 plus I like a priest who digs jazz!:cool: blessings
 
Indeed it is a really bad idea to judge a priests wealth or generosity by the stuff he has and the cars he drives. Since diocesan priests do not take vows of poverty, they could have saved up, or inherited their parents car, or the money to buy a nice car, or been given the car by the parish (this is what happens in the parish I grew up in) or by a generous parishioner.
 
Elvis_Guy said:
its very solid…safe…and very reliable
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He must not read Consumer Reports. A Benz is very solid and safe, but has one of the worst reliability records! My Golf is more reliable according to Consumer Reports.

Oddly a Golf is seen as a pretty ordinary car around here, but in terms of price the top-of-the-line model is over $30k. Mine’s a diesel since I have such a long commute (98 km each way 3-4 days a week). You’d have to pay me to take on a Benz. A colleague had one, took it in for its first oil change and service, and came out with a whopping $500 bill. Needless to say she was shocked.
 
Who cares what car, 4x4, truck or exotic luxury sports car or sedan a priest drives.

So what if he drives a McLaren F1

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or a Maybach Sedan

http://www.fobz.com/images/expensive-cars-maybach1.jpg

Superficial really.

People see only what they want to see.

Does a suit make a man or does man make the suit? 😉
 
Priests are men and most men are into cars or sports or both.

Why begrudge them an expensive car even if its purley for fun? They work hard.
 
My old pastor has a nice Harley!

I don’t know if he has a car; I’ve never seen him drive one. I’ve only seen one priest drive a car, and it was a mid range sedan I believe.

If priests get stipends, or have family that purchase such things, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with buying a nice car or whatever they want to buy.
 
odile53 said:
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some dioceses had fleet arrangements with dealerships: For a certain cost, the dealership provides a certain number of cars with specific lease terms, including maintenance packages.
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Good thought but it doesn’t work that way. Each priest has his own idea of what kind of car he wants to drive so that wouldn’t work. However, we do have a group auto insurance but individual priests are also free to get their own insurance if they so choose and the insurance company is allowed to kick bad driving priests off its plan.
But while the diocese administrates and coordinates the insurance plan, it is the individual parishes that pay for it.
A member of the parish staff takes the car in for maintenance or servicing at specific intervals, and it gets budgeted out to the diocese instead of part of the parish’s budget. That way, less affluent parishes can have a reliable later model vehicle, and the priest wouldn’t be paying for it out of his own compensation package. Naturally, parishes would be sending a certain amount of their receipts to the diocese, and that could be assessed equitably for each parish depending on each parish’s relative affluence. With a fleet of vehicles, leased or purchased, the diocese would get a break in bulk fleet prices. Because they’d be leasing or selling to a charitable organization, the dealership might be eligible for a tax break on the income from the fleet. Everybody wins!
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That would be problematic on a few levels. One is that in many dioceses the parish is a separate legal corporation from the diocese. And under canon law the parish is its own “juridic person.” You can’t just mix the money and possessions between the two.
 
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