Should Churches charge for Sacraments?

  • Thread starter Thread starter somecanadian
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I think it’s safe to say these kinds of things vary parish by parish and are not universal.
 
On the other hand, I have lived/worked in a few Dioceses. Deacons are not paid unless they also are employed in a specific position (School Administrator, Parish Business Manager, Diocese office of Finance, etc.)
 
Deacons in our diocese are only paid if they have a position that a priest or a lay person would be paid for.
 
somecanadian said:
I think it’s safe to say these kinds of things vary parish by parish and are not universal.
Click to expand...
OP, at this point, you’ve received information that:

a) the Catholic Church does not and cannot charge for sacraments. This is simony.
b) parishes request reasonable fees for things like weddings and funerals, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the situation. These fees should be enumerated up front, and provisions made for those who cannot pay them.
c) parishes may suggest offerings on the occasion of sacraments, but may not require them.
d) your archdiocese or ecclesial province should have norms established for what the mass stipend and the offerings on the occasion of sacraments is.
e) the typical mass offering for a mass intention is around $10, but mass intentions must be honored whether any monetary amount comes with it or not

So, the question is, what do you plan to do? Talk to your pastor?

I think this thread can go on forever with back and forth on what should be paid, etc. They always do. But, we do not pay for sacraments. And you could make some helpful suggestions to your pastor based on your experience, particularly because he is new.
 
At this point I’m undecided. My concern with these kind of things is that it is a very small parish and I have no desire to ruffle feathers. I have seen more than one person driven out of this parish for speaking up about ‘wrong’ things. I’m just not sure I wish to risk it.

My point of starting this discussion was NEVER to find a ‘solution’ for what’s happening to me. I fully intended to just pay the fee and move on but I was curious if this was normal, expected and if my gut instinct that it was ‘wrong’ was right.

For me this discussion has been very informative and I’ve enjoyed it but it may just go down to another thing the parish does that I’m not comfortable with but that I’m not willing to speak up about.

This thread DID inspire me to join the RCIA volunteer team though. So yay!
 
Augustinian said:
A lot of your inner city parishes have older, larger, more ornate church buildings- which are a lot more expensive to clean and maintain than the modern church buildings a lot of people on CAF really dislike.

Steeplejacks don’t work cheap.

It cost a neo-gothic Baptist church a million clams to take down, repair and restore its historic steeple. They could not have done it without a grant from local historical preservationists.
Click to expand...
That wouldn’t surprise me. I’m in the archdiocese of baltimore, so the inner city churches are usually meaning inner city baltimore. There are some very poor areas where people have little to spare to support their parish.

Even around here I saw some of the numbers for repairing an old church, and that was the church in a good section where we’ve got a lot of DC professionals.
 
I think it would be far to say to Father something like this:

“Hello Father, while I’m fine paying the fee, I would highly recommend making sure couples know about this before hand. It would prevent some unneeded confusion and upset feelings.”

God bless
 
We’ve established 10 or 15 times on this thread that churches do not “charge” for sacraments or “charge” for weddings and yet it keeps coming back to “should churches charge for weddings”.

On the general point of “charging for sacraments” we’ve established that churches don’t charge, and also that many if not most people understand that it’s expected to provide an offering, donation, gift, whatever you call it to the church when they have a wedding. While I am not from any sort of rich area, the weddings I see are generally not shoestring affairs where every single thing is handmade and the couple are going camping in the park for a honeymoon. People, or their parents who are often paying for a lot of the wedding expenses, can generally afford the donation and it is simply not as big of a deal as you’re making it, nor is it a “Universal” concern.

OP: From the fact that you’ve made several posts, what I am getting from this whole situation is that for whatever reason - changing priests in the middle of the prep, or just being distracted by everything going on like completing the prep and making the arrangements etc - you had some kind of miscommunication with your priest.

As 1ke said, the only issue here is whether you’re going to talk to your new pastor about it.

I have to say, we get a lot of these threads where somebody had an experience that due to their personal situation, didn’t sit right with them and they go on to write post after post after detailed post describing it, especially when they don’t get the “wow! That’s awful! You were so right to be concerned!” response they were apparently hoping to get, and they try to make it into a “universal” concern. Most of the time, it is so specific to their particular circumstances that it simply is not that universal. It just isn’t.
 
Last edited:
Well, it doesn’t help that I came into this discussion after reading multiple posts on this forum where people had experienced exactly what I described so I came in thinking this was, in fact, a universal problem and was hoping to gain some insight. Which I did.

And of course I have made several posts. I am responding to questions people ask or accusations they are throwing. Isn’t that normal human nature?

Prior to making this post I had read several posts of people who had been charged anywhere from $800 to $1400 for weddings and so I was a bit heated when I initially made the post as that seemed completely unacceptable and outrageous to me. Which is why, initially, I urged people not to consider my individual situation since it seemed to me there were far more egregious examples of this practice.
 
Last edited:
My point is that if you’re trying to pitch a situation as “universally” of concern, the more details you add about this and that as it pertains to you makes it less universal and more all about you.

At the end of the day, what I’m getting is the same thing I get from a lot of threads on CAF: Someone had an issue with the church and wanted to complain.
 
Ah, I see. I only added details about ME because people insisted on asking. I tried not to answer but I am human and eventually I was weak and did answer their questions. My fault.

If you’ll read the thread in entirety you will see that initially I tried to curtail those questions but commenters were determined to make it about my situation. I had hoped it would be a broader discussion but… apparently that’s not a thing here.
 
somecanadian said:
I suspect you and I just won’t 100% see eye to eye on this issue but it’s good to hear other sides of a thing.

I work hard. I don’t get paid. I am happy to serve. 😛 Just saying. Haha
Click to expand...
If someone didn’t volunteer, would you expect them to pay? If yes, then you are not volunteering, you 're expecting to get paid in services. If no, then who should pay the overhead?
 
You said you volunteered at you parish a lot, gave at the offertory, and knew that others did not. I took that to mean you didn’t think you should have been asked for additional money to cover facility costs. I am probably incorrectly conflating two things
 
Oh no! That’s not what I meant. I feel asking for additional charges for things like weddings is just incorrect in general as weddings are a sacrament and should be freely given (and yes, I know, I know… people don’t believe wedding fees are charging for the sacrament but when the two things are so closely intertwined I’m not sure how it isn’t).

I was reacting to the comment that said people who work hard should be compensated in money. I also work hard and volunteer and have never asked for a dime for it. I have this weird vision of Catholicism where we are all servants to one another and give and take equally to the church BUT apparently I’m a bit idealistic. I in no way felt I was due anything because of the time I have volunteered to the Church. That time was freely given and I desire nothing in return for it.
 
I’ve seen it done once, they actually did the nuptials after Mass ended. You wouldn’t have known there was a wedding that day if the priest hadn’t invited people to stay.
 
Last edited:
  1. Was that particular priest bound under ecclesial or moral law to marry you?
    No? Then reward him out of the charity of your heart.
  2. You can always sue in civil court.
Just saying.
 
LOL! Oh gosh. Suing seems like a ‘great’ idea. I’m good. As I’ve stated repeatedly I intend to pay them and from the start didn’t intend for this to be a discussion about my particular situation.

I take it you see nothing wrong with a church charging wedding fees.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top