What do priests do all day?

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It is said that St. John Vianney would spend up to seventeen or eighteen hours a day in the confessional. I sometimes read that priests are very busy, but how? I understand that priests usually say only one Mass a day. Does anyone know what they do the rest of the time? Why can’t they too spend several hours in the confessional, and make sure the church is open for prayer each day? Ordinarily there are not a great number of seriously ill or dying parishioners at one time. Are they required to recite the hours if they have a lot of confessions to hear, and sick to visit, or does providing the sacraments to those who wish to receive them come first?
 
recentrevert said:
It is said that St. John Vianney would spend up to seventeen or eighteen hours a day in the confessional. I sometimes read that priests are very busy, but how? I understand that priests usually say only one Mass a day. Does anyone know what they do the rest of the time? Why can’t they too spend several hours in the confessional, and make sure the church is open for prayer each day? Ordinarily there are not a great number of seriously ill or dying parishioners at one time. Are they required to recite the hours if they have a lot of confessions to hear, and sick to visit, or does providing the sacraments to those who wish to receive them come first?
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Priests do a lot of office and administrative work, meet with people for spiritual counseling and married prep (our priest does 44 hrs of marriage prep per couple) sick calls, visiting sick parishioners, answer numerous emails and letters, return calls, various meetings, our priest has at minimum 3 hours of required prayer he has to do each day. He also spends a lot of time in the confessional.

There are very limited circumstances when a priest is relieved of praying his breviary and it’s only in extraordinary circumstances. Our priests still must recite their Breivary even with all the sacraments they provide. They often have to do it all at once.
 
Yes, many priests start their day (at the parish) saying Mass, and often are involved with the youth groups and other volunteer activities that meet in the evening. (I guess if the rectory is close they could go home for short stints). At the church where I sing, I often see the light on in the priest’s office at 7:30pm when I show up to sing. They have a school, so he also has to be present for school functions. Paperwork, administration, planning, meetings, appointments. I would imagine just answering messages (phone and email) would probably take a good chunk out of a priest’s day. Saturdays, they are doing weddings, weekdays they are doing funerals, they visit the sick or elderly in the hospital or in their homes. Besides this, they must plan (or be a part of) planning liturgies, keeping up with material from the diocese, and praying their breviary.
 
I work for a priest. He is extremely busy every day! He says Mass each morning, then goes into the office. What greets him each day is a huge stack of papers waiting to be read and signed. He has lots of voicemails from people needing to schedule appointments with him. He goes to the nursing home to do yet another Mass and of course there’s the once a week Mass with the school kids. He helps run the school, works with the office staff, anoints people, visits the home bound, does marriage prep, counsels troubled people and works alongside the various ministries of the parish. As if that weren’t enough, he usually has 3-4 funerals each week. So not only does he have to do those, he spends hours visiting with the families of the deceased, trying to comfort them. He spends lots of time working on his homilies, which are always fantastic. He tries to help out as much as possible taking care of his sick, aging parents. And oh yeah, when he can squeeze in time, he enjoys eating a meal every now and then. He has to have time each day to pray and study the scriptures. I’m sure I’m leaving out a million things I have no idea that he does daily. But as you can see, our priests are very busy already. Everything they do each day is a sacrifice for us, to help us get to Heaven. Let us be thankful for them and always remember to pray for them.
 
While of course everyone is different, generally speaking I have found they have a schedule close to this. Usually after morning mass they have breakfast, then hospital visits / sick calls. Sometimes a funeral. Then lunch and take care of church business and meetings in the afternoon.

I gathered this from several years of calling on local parishes to arrange anointing for terminally ill Catholics and per the secretaries telling me what the Priest schedule was.

Throw in a few sessions of pastoral counseling and time for sermon prep and it’s a pretty full week!
 
recentrevert said:
It is said that St. John Vianney would spend up to seventeen or eighteen hours a day in the confessional. I sometimes read that priests are very busy, but how? I understand that priests usually say only one Mass a day. Does anyone know what they do the rest of the time? Why can’t they too spend several hours in the confessional, and make sure the church is open for prayer each day? Ordinarily there are not a great number of seriously ill or dying parishioners at one time. Are they required to recite the hours if they have a lot of confessions to hear, and sick to visit, or does providing the sacraments to those who wish to receive them come first?
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Our priest is alone in the parish and ours is a pretty spread out rural parish. It doesn’t take “a great number of seriously ill or dying parishioners” to eat up a big chunk of his day. Just two visits would be a good 4 hours - the closes hospital is almost an hour’s drive. Add that to daily Mass, office hours working with parish staff on the finances, publications or other paperwork “stuff”. He has one other scheduled activity every day (Confession, Holy Hour, nursing home visit, etc.) Almost every week there is a meeting at the Chancery, the deanery or the Vicariate for one thing or another. He also teaches the RCIA class. He has to prepare his homilies (6 each week), perform weddings and baptisms. Our parish does not have a rectory housekeeper so he is also doing his own grocery shopping and cooking.

In general, 5 days a week he is working from 7am to about 8pm five days a week and working half a day on the other two days. Not only would spending “several hours” in the Confessional be almost impossible but it would not be a good use of his time. Most of those “several hours” would be just waiting for someone to show up.

BTW, if you read about St. John Vianney, he spent those long hours in the Confessional at the direction of his Bishop and did not, at that time, have any other required duties. It was only at the end of his life, when he was in his 60s, that he became mostly an exclusive Confessor.
 
And all of those things that people have mentioned are the things that he does in relation to his parish. There are Archdiocesan or Diocesan meetings, committees, and conferences that priests are called to every month.
They really have to set aside time for their families, their hobby or personal interests, exercise and reading, and their own personal spiritual retreats. Often, these things come last.
Pray for our priests. Not many of us have a 24-7 job.
 
It really depends on the order they are in. The Jesuits are educators so much of their time is on academic and office work. Because they live in communities they do not all say Mass everyday, but they do all attend Mass everyday then spend certain amount of time in prayer. They do counseling or anointing the sick when asked and as “Men for Others” they spend a great deal of time helping the needy or oversee others to help the needy through community service. The Jesuits are also always furthering their own education and spiritual growing through class and retreats going all over the world.
 
Priests do plenty in a day, and it may depend on the nature of the needs in their Parish.
Here is what my pastor spent his days doing:
Staff meeting to ensure the office was running correctly, education programs where in order and things like repairs and maintenance were being handled correctly.
Visiting the sick, in a variety of hospitals and nursing care facilities. This included saying Masses at nursing homes and for shut-ins.
Counseling and private confessions.
Assisting the homeless in the area.
He did some of the yard maintenance and work himself, when office hours were over.
There is always something going on within the archdiocese that he had to attend to as well.

Most priests have to have a background in business to run the Parish, if a school is part of parish life there is more than enough for them to be busy with. Then there are funerals, nearly two or three a week, at a minimum, weddings and wedding prep with the potential couple, not to mention counseling of those having marriage difficulties.

My pastor would go to anyone’s house, at any time of the day or night to visit the sick, and if they were dying would spend his time there until they passed.

There was also Parish Council, Liturgical issues to monitor, as with the choir, Lectors, and Eucharistic Ministers,–anything that had anything to do with events at the Parish. He was never idle, was always cancelling his day off and available to those in need. He also helped people move, made sure they had transportation when needed, and saw to it that they had help with medical bills, and food.

So, a good priest is not an idle man.
 
We also have a solo priest and I can’t ever remember seeing him strolling anywhere! However, even though he seems to work non-stop, he is always happy. He’s a wonderful man, God bless our priests for the sacrifices they make.
 
Why not separate the administrative work form the sacramental ministry?
 
“What does a priest do all day”? Firstly, it depends on the diocese: one diocese may have special programs that involve their clergy. It also depends on the priest: some priests are in different ministries. There are university-chaplains, hospital-chaplains, police-chaplains, parish-priests, Religious-priests, and monastic-priests.

For your average parish priest, the answer is often simple. I am blessed to have known my closest friend before and after his ordination, and his life has changed drastically. He took over a joined-parish, with two different church buildings separated by a mile or so. He lives in one rectory and works in the other. I work in the “working rectory” with him on weekdays, so I can say with 100% accuracy what he “does all day”:

4 AM: he wakes up at Living Rectory. Exercise. Shower. Prayers. Emails.
8 AM: he walks to Working Rectory.
9 AM: he celebrates Mass at the Working Church.
9:40 AM: begins proper office work. Often leaves for hospital visits, anointing the sick, funerals, diocesan events.
12 PM: walks to Living Rectory for lunch.
2 PM: back at the Working Rectory for meetings, spiritual direction, counseling.
4-5 PM: walks back to the Living Rectory for evening prayer.
6 PM: supper.
7 PM: varies. painting, renovating, meetings, finance councils, parish councils. visits.
9-10 PM: Sleep.

He is extremely busy and alone in his job. He never stops serving those entrusted to him. It’s not even a very busy parish, either. Boggles my mind. 🙂

The “Office Administrator” (Secretary) is a lay woman. Another administrator is a Religious Sister. Another administrator is a lay woman. Along with many laity, these people do the bulk of administration. My friend mostly manages sacramental things - but not exclusively.
 
Michael_Mayo said:
Why not separate the administrative work form the sacramental ministry?
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We do to some extent. But we have only one paid staff person and she can only do so much. The role of a pastor, by definition, is both Sacramental and Administrative. A pastor who only did the Sacramental work would not be shepherding or providing leadership. That would be a poor pastor.
 
Corki said:
We do to some extent. But we have only one paid staff person and she can only do so much. The role of a pastor, by definition, is both Sacramental and Administrative. A pastor who only did the Sacramental work would not be shepherding or providing leadership. That would be a poor pastor.
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And, I might add, that there are always people that refuse to talk to a lay person…they insist that they need to talk to the priest, even if the priest says Clare or one of the Deacons can help you with that.
You know, because we’re unfriendly and all that. 😃
There are groupies…bless their hearts. 😉
 
Ours is a small parish with no paid staff. So, the priest celebrates Mass every day except his day off. He is always in the confessional a half hour before Mass. He opens the mail and pays the bills. He answers the phone himself and returns calls. He visits people who have requested visits. He responds to various requests for information, reports, etc. from the Archdiocese. He does the shopping for the parish hall and directs repairs or renovations. He even takes care of the parish grounds himself. Then, of course, there are people who drop by the office with some request. There are parish meetings too. So, the list is endless of what the pastor does.
 
My parish is a medium sized parish (for California) and has a fairly large staff. We have quite a few deacons who help out with funerals, marriage prep, and many of the other functions a priest might otherwise have to do.

However my pastor still has quite a bit on his plate because he is also teaches at the seminary. (He had to get special permission to be assigned to a parish.)
 
The only way to solve this dilemma is to limit the amount parishioners a priest can adequately administer to. I’ve read where it would ideally be 1:150 people. Not 1:1250 families. Something is broken in the system that has allowed the disparity. Can anybody answer the question of why so few priests?
 
Casilda said:
The only way to solve this dilemma is to limit the amount parishioners a priest can adequately administer to. I’ve read where it would ideally be 1:150 people. Not 1:1250 families. Something is broken in the system that has allowed the disparity. Can anybody answer the question of why so few priests?
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Contraception. Catholic families have contracepted the vocation out of existence.
 
Pray for priests, pray for vocations, pray for Catholic families, and pray for more mature parishioners who will have no impractical expectations on priests and not bother them with unnecessary demands.
 
Contraception, yes. Plus, the church scandals, real and promoted, do tend to scare away some young men.

We are going from a three-priest parish to a one-priest parish on Sept 1st, and you could tell today, the congregation was skittish with all the news. Now, we will go from two daily masses, including monday night novena, rosary and adoration, one daily mass, no adoration, and no mass on Thursdays at all.

My still-unmarried son, who has danced around the priesthood since he was 11 has told me now (in his m id 20s): nope. forget it. He doesn’t say why but worked in a local parish for six months full time and the politics in the office and among the parishioners made him physically sick.

He’s not lazy, but said he was just not interested in all the bruhaha priests have to endure on a daily basis.
 
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