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MelbaTozt
Guest
I’ll pass on the luck, but I’ll take the blessing. Examining this issue has been very helpful to me. Thanks for participating!
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EasterJoy
Guest
I don’t think that is quite fair. While I think it is clearly not simony to require a class for First Communion preparation and to require parents to pay a nominal fee for it if they can’t demonstrate that their children don’t need the class and don’t claim they can’t afford the cost, but I don’t think the question is out of line.
After all, when the amount was excessive, one of CA’s apologists suggested that it could be simony. (I’m assuming that he was only referring to the amount, since his own brother Dominicans ask a nominal fee for religious education and sacramental prep up here in Oregon.)
Her suggestion was that the parish pay for it. In a parish with 50 kids making their FHC paying $50 each, that’s $2,500 a year. Many if not most parishes could budget for that, particularly if they had a fundraiser for it or merely asked for donations instead of charging a fee. I don’t think it is wrong when they don’t, but it would not take a miracle on the plane of feeding the 5,000 to pull it off! It would mean letting other parish work go wanting, though, and that is why parishes don’t do it.
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MelbaTozt
Guest
Maybe the priest has not heard of his brothers charging fees since he also responded with:
“I have never heard of children paying for religious instruction”
I’m guessing he’s older. I think the younger generations will be saying instead, “I have never heard of children NOT paying for religious instruction.”
How times change.
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Joannm
Guest
I don’t know of any parish in our diocese that does not charge for Religious Ed. Most charge $100 or more. With 500 to 1,000 or more kids in programs in most of the parishes they cannot run programs without charging. Many parishes now are copying the Catholic school policy of charging lesser fees for contributing parishioners. I think it is a bargain considering what many parents pay for Karate, dance, music lessons, sports, plus video games, cell phones and other high cost “necessities” for their kids.
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George_Stegmeir
Guest
I was away from the church for almost 50 years, and returned to the church about 6 years ago. Thank God I went to a parochial school (1 through 9th grades) that was run by the Jesuits and the Sisters of St. Joseph. When I started to neglect my religionmI was in my mid teens and everything was in Latin, which I knew because its study was required in my school. Although when I returned to the faith, everything was in English or Polish (I belong to an ethnic parish), but apart from the English language Mass being a terrible translation, I remembered all of the basics-including the prayers.
The point of all of this is that I am appalled at some of the events I read about on this site…Priests refusing to hear confession because it is inconvenient for them; The need for making an appointment weeks in advance to see a priest, Canned Sermons that are read in a boring tone of voice, rather than original material being preached; Parishes being run more like a business than a religious enterprise and the charging fees for religious education.
I was denied confession once because the young priest said he wasn’t hearing confessions in English that week. When I reported this to the pastor, all H**L broke loose!
Since that time there have been regular hours for confession and many more people are receiving the sacrement now.
If I, or any of my fellow parishioners(most of which come from the old country) found that there was a fee for any religious instruction or rites, other than the usual stipend which is low, they wouldn’t write the Archbishop. They would be banging down his door!
All of these faults exist because most of the Catholic laity are not well grounded in our Faith and the new American attitude of “Don’t make Waves”. To quote my sainted Polish Grandmother: “FECH”!
The point of all of this is that I am appalled at some of the events I read about on this site…Priests refusing to hear confession because it is inconvenient for them; The need for making an appointment weeks in advance to see a priest, Canned Sermons that are read in a boring tone of voice, rather than original material being preached; Parishes being run more like a business than a religious enterprise and the charging fees for religious education.
I was denied confession once because the young priest said he wasn’t hearing confessions in English that week. When I reported this to the pastor, all H**L broke loose!
Since that time there have been regular hours for confession and many more people are receiving the sacrement now.
If I, or any of my fellow parishioners(most of which come from the old country) found that there was a fee for any religious instruction or rites, other than the usual stipend which is low, they wouldn’t write the Archbishop. They would be banging down his door!
All of these faults exist because most of the Catholic laity are not well grounded in our Faith and the new American attitude of “Don’t make Waves”. To quote my sainted Polish Grandmother: “FECH”!
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GwenL
Guest
Give me a break. We are supposed to presume on God’s miracles to run our religious ed program? I think the Lord expects us to work things out to the best of our ability.
So you suggest that we open the classroom on a 20 degree morning and pray that the room will be heated? We open the bathrooms and pray that when a kid flushes the toilet, the water goes down? I think not.
In this thread, as a catechist, I’ve been accused with the broad brush of many posters of simony, heresy, stealing from the religious ed funds to line my pockets, teaching heterodoxy, and complaining about what we need. Now you accuse us, with a patronizing lecture, of not having sufficient faith to believe that God will work miracles needed to run the day-to-day religious ed program?
Again, I ask: what have YOU done to raise funds for your religious education program? What realistic, positive suggestions do you have to run a religious education program?
We have an orthodox, caring priest who runs our program (we can’t afford a DRE). We teach the teachings of the Church. We teach about the necessity of confession. We teach about sin and heaven and hell; I teach teenagers about contraception, abortion, extra-marital sex, dating, dress, modesty, and purity.
I don’t complain–I love what I do, contribute a great deal of my time, and have grown spiritually in many ways. Several times, I’ve stood in front of a bunch of teenagers, fielded a tough question, wondered how to answer it, and suddenly found the words to answer. I wouldn’t trade those experiences of having the Holy Spirit teach those kids through me, for anything.
We don’t charge parents who can’t pay. This is handled directly between parents and priest–nobody else even knows.
The priest interviews candidates whose parents ask to go direct to the sacraments without enrollment in religious education.
Whole family catechesis is the real challenge; adults are not catechized well enough to teach the kids the basics, in most cases. We require families, with their kids in religious ed, to attend Mass at our parish. We have, in addition, one family Mass per month that all religious ed families must attend. We require the parents to attend adult faith formation (they have several choices).
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MelbaTozt
Guest
You haven’t been accused of anything. You have missed the entire point of the discussion which is religious ed policy and if Sacramental Prep should be a charged fee or paid for out of the general fund, and if there could be simony involved when parents are given no other options but to pay in order to obtain a Sacrament for their children.
If it makes you feel any better, several posters have criticized parents as being lazy, ignorant of the Faith, greedy, looking for a free ride, and so on.
I realize that these parents do exist and I’m sorry that it’s such a burden to teachers to have to deal with them. I’m not one of 'em. Everyone has personal experiences and anecdotal evidence… it’s only natural to want to share them.
Regardless, no one knows you or what you do, but it sounds like you do much for your parish, so thanks!
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MelbaTozt
Guest
George,
Welcome back to the Church!
Your post made me smile. I wish more people on this thread could understand why some Catholics have the reactions they do when they learn about $100 Sacramental Prep fees. It had nothing to do with cheapness or being out of touch with reality. The priests and Catholics I respect the most as being well-versed in their Faith have the same reaction.
God bless!
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dconklin
Guest
I am jumping into to this a little late and I skipped to the end, so I am sorry if this was already covered…
I am on staff at a large (3000 families) parish. There are three of us on the Rel Ed staff and we are all full time. We educate 1500 children each year. We offer classes six times a week in our 12 classroom parish life center. We charge $75 as well. Half if a parent is a catechist. We do scholarship children when necessary and we ask their parents to volunteer.
There are no parishes in our diocese that do not charge a fee.
It is not just a priest gathering the kids around for a lesson.
I am on staff at a large (3000 families) parish. There are three of us on the Rel Ed staff and we are all full time. We educate 1500 children each year. We offer classes six times a week in our 12 classroom parish life center. We charge $75 as well. Half if a parent is a catechist. We do scholarship children when necessary and we ask their parents to volunteer.
There are no parishes in our diocese that do not charge a fee.
It is not just a priest gathering the kids around for a lesson.
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Annabelle_Marie
Guest
I just love it when people complain about not being able to see a priest right away. At our parish…if you don’t have an emergency…you may wait to see our priest. We have exactly one. In between Masses and sacraments, he does not have enough time to see everyone that wants to be seen right away. He does however have regular schedule confession times.
I’m sure you could pound on the door of our Archbishop…who might laugh in your face.
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EasterJoy
Guest
I think the difference comes concerning a reasonable amount for “the usual stipend which is low.” I think this can especially be a problem if the decision makers and the parents are in different socioeconomic groups. What is a “reasonable” stipend?
There is an added problem when the class sizes become so high that teachers have to be hired or even if the volunteers teachers simply can’t afford to buy supplies out of their own pockets for so many. Then the hardship on the parish starts to be substantial, so that it really cuts into the good works the parish is able to pursue on other fronts.
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George_Stegmeir
Guest
If classes are such that teachers must be paid, then the pastor should have special collections at Mass so that the whole parish contributes to the religious education of children and converts. This was regularly done in the parish I grew up in, in South Florida, and knowing the parish, I’m sure it is still being done.
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EasterJoy
Guest
I think that is an excellent solution, frankly.
Although I think it is ethical for parishes to charge parents for the supplies needed in religious education, particularly where the bulk of the education seems to be falling on the parish instead of directly onto the parents, I think it would be much preferable if the parish finds a way to offer religious education with no fee attached–save, perhaps, asking the parents to verify the offering of a certain amount of service rendered to the parish, the diocese, or the poor.
Still, in some parishes religious education would eat up a disproportionate amount of the collection, because quite frankly the contributions of the faithful are wholly out of line with the needs of the parish, let alone the substantial amount of charitable work the parish ought to be able to do in the name of the Catholic faithful that reside within it.
I can imagine it now: the priest gets up to give an announcement: “We had a collection last week for the purpose of providing religious education to all children in the parish who are not attending the parish school. It would be nice if all our children could come to the school, but there are three times as many children in the parish as the school can accomodate. Even if we could afford to expand the school buildings, which we can’t, there are not nearly enough support from parishioners to make tuition affordable for many of our families.”
“As it is, we’re asking for enough money for books, paper, and few art supplies so that volunteers can give every Wednesday night for a whole school year to teach our children. So far, we’ve raised 15% of that, even though the amount required is a few dollars from each of the adults that we actually see at Mass on a weekly basis. We will be repeating this collection until the amount is raised, or until someone can explain to me what great Christian work is so consuming the disposable income of the parish that this can’t be done. If you know any fellow parishioners who were at a neighboring parish for Mass this weekend, I hope you’ll pass the word.”
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yablabo
Guest
In my experience, the pastor was so used to getting free-will stipends of varying sizes (or no stipend at all) that when I asked him what the stipend as regulated by the Archbishop was he had to phone up the parish secretary…haha! It was $5 in general for his trouble to say a Mass.
He told me flat out, if I didn’t have the means to give the stipend, I should merely not worry about it.
I have never heard of a priest or pastor making a big deal out of the stipends in my personal experience of life. Maybe I’ve always been at parishes that people actually tithed? I don’t know.
– Nicole
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Timothy3_15
Guest
The bottom line is that my daughter is flatly being denied 1st Holy Communion from my local parish where I’m registered at because we don’t want to commit a Simoniac act. The last thing I’m going to do is spend a year taking her to class there only to find out that I won’t be given an official 1st Communion document by this church. The priest and DRE have decided to completely ignore me. I even offered to bring the actual materials with me but the DRE wont give me a list of the materials (its probably because they don’t come close to costing the $75 they are charging for the sacramental preparation class). They don’t care about the faithful receiving the sacrament but about the money they receive because it’s more important to them.
I think many of you who are for the charge are following the dictates of your local churches and not what the Universal Roman Catholic Church recommends in regard to those who desire to received the sacrament of 1st Holy Communion (esp. considering these charges didn’t exist 10 years ago). Most people in a parish just go with the flow of whatever their parish does whether right or wrong (its human nature to not want to stand out and to remain luke-warm). Here is what the Universal Church (not local church) teaches us:
In the Code of Cannon law it says:
• Can. 843 §1. Sacred ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who seek them at appropriate times, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.
• Can. 912 Any baptized person not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to holy communion.
• Can. 914 It is primarily the duty of parents and those who take the place of parents, as well as the duty of pastors, to take care that children who have reached the use of reason are prepared properly and, after they have made sacramental confession, are refreshed with this divine food as soon as possible.
The Cathecism of the Catholic Church says:
2121 Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things.53 To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter responded: "Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money!"54 Peter thus held to the words of Jesus: "You received without pay, give without pay."55 It is impossible to appropriate to oneself spiritual goods and behave toward them as their owner or master, for they have their source in God. One can receive them only from him, without payment.
In Ecclesiastes 5:10 it says:
“He who loves money never has money enough.”
The dictates above are what the Universal teaches and has always taught. The net is that the priest should desire to provide the sacrament to my daughter without ANY barriers whatsoever. The quote from Ecclesiastes clearly shows what the problem is with the parishes. They will never have enough money and their greed will lead them to break the precedence set by Christ of giving the sacraments without expecting to receive ANY payment for it (yes by saying that my daughter has to take the class to receive communion then charging for it is Simony).
I think many of you who are for the charge are following the dictates of your local churches and not what the Universal Roman Catholic Church recommends in regard to those who desire to received the sacrament of 1st Holy Communion (esp. considering these charges didn’t exist 10 years ago). Most people in a parish just go with the flow of whatever their parish does whether right or wrong (its human nature to not want to stand out and to remain luke-warm). Here is what the Universal Church (not local church) teaches us:
In the Code of Cannon law it says:
• Can. 843 §1. Sacred ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who seek them at appropriate times, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.
• Can. 912 Any baptized person not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to holy communion.
• Can. 914 It is primarily the duty of parents and those who take the place of parents, as well as the duty of pastors, to take care that children who have reached the use of reason are prepared properly and, after they have made sacramental confession, are refreshed with this divine food as soon as possible.
The Cathecism of the Catholic Church says:
2121 Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things.53 To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter responded: "Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money!"54 Peter thus held to the words of Jesus: "You received without pay, give without pay."55 It is impossible to appropriate to oneself spiritual goods and behave toward them as their owner or master, for they have their source in God. One can receive them only from him, without payment.
In Ecclesiastes 5:10 it says:
“He who loves money never has money enough.”
The dictates above are what the Universal teaches and has always taught. The net is that the priest should desire to provide the sacrament to my daughter without ANY barriers whatsoever. The quote from Ecclesiastes clearly shows what the problem is with the parishes. They will never have enough money and their greed will lead them to break the precedence set by Christ of giving the sacraments without expecting to receive ANY payment for it (yes by saying that my daughter has to take the class to receive communion then charging for it is Simony).
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