I told my mother I’m in the wrong line of work.
According to the compensation guidelines of the Diocese of Western New York - one of the poorest and least populous places in the country - a full time assistant priest, with less than one year after ordination, is to be given $41K of compensation. This includes housing, I admit: but most of us pay housing out of our salaries, no?
Assistant, mind you.
I’m serious.
The only time I’ve earned more than my age - a period of about 3 years in SF - I managed to earn $41K while I was paying $1100 a month in rent and attempting to support an unemployed partner in San Francisco. But I was managing a small budget and a miniscule staff. I was doing tech training for an entire faculty at a college. And I’d been at the college for 2 years.
41K?
After 3 years, the compensation goes up to $48.5K
Median family income in Buffalo is $34,520.
Median family income in the USA is $44,583.
Fourty eight and a half freakin k?
For an assistant?
It’s higher in NYC.
Yup. I’m in the wrong line of work. Mind you, I’m not sure what work that is…
Huw,
…and then you subtract the celibacy, carry the one….48k is starting to sound pretty reasonable.
Episcopal clergy are not celibate (at least are not required to be!)
lol…my bad..I’ll go back to my hole now… ;)
Since I was a priest in a Catholic monastery, there was no traceable income to compare to other jobs, but the reality was that all my needs and many/most wants were taken care of as a matter of course. Those members of the community who worked in parishes full time (only a handful in that contemplative community) received what I considered very generous compensation, above what you mention, I believe.
At the same time, from what I could see, those same men put in far more than forty hours a week working, above and beyond the community prayer times they followed. I realize this may not be true of all clergy in all traditions. But I saw men who were up at 5:00 a.m. to celebrate liturgy (and preach) at 6:00, put in a pretty busy day until dinner, then attend meetings almost every night that went until 9:00 or so. Did they earn their compensation? At least some of them certainly did.
On the other hand, I also knew religious sisters who put in days that were at least as long and hard and whose compensation was about a third of that given to the clergy. But “of course” they were religious, vowed to poverty. (So were the religious priests who were receiving the same compensation as diocesan clergy for parish work.) I could be wrong, but it would seem to me that justice would give religious the compensation that was appropriate to the ministry they did and it was up to the religious and her community to decide what to do with that income.
But what do I know? I’m just a guy with a graduate degree and thirty years experience who finds himself pretty much disqualified from working for the church and instead working for $8.00 an hour and no benefits other than an enjoyable working situation, pleasant colleagues and a chance to talk to the wonderful people who somehow find our little museum.
As the ads say, “Priceless!”
There are a few other things to consider regarding that salary. First, there are many Episcopal dioceses that can’t afford to pay it or even half of it, especially in the American heartland. Second, by the time a person is ordained to the Priesthood, they have likely spent a considerable amount of money of school and such a salary will barely help to make a dent in such debt. And, third, most of the parishes that make up TEC couldn’t afford and don’t need an assistant priest.
Now, in our tradition, we must use secular employment to pay the bills. On top of my work for the parish, I work a 40-hour a week job for a Fortune 500 company. And, all of the parish expenditures come out of my salary. In this way, I think Liberal Catholic priests have more in common with Roman monastics than their Episcopal brothers. We log long hours, get little pay, and are often close to poverty.
If you really want a line of work, I would recommend nursing. A friend of mine just finished nursing school and is making 60K right out of school
Fr Christopher - you hit the nail on the head: “they have likely spent a considerable amount of money of school and such a salary will barely help to make a dent in such debt. ”
Charles Wesley once asked a man going into debt over seminary, “Are you going to be an embarrassment to your family or to your parish?”
But…
Regarding the other points: this is only in the diocese of Buffalo. These are the canonical minimums for an assistant. A Reector or Vicar recieves *much more*. It will differ in other dioceses, but, again, if you can’t afford to pay this - you don’t get a priest; at least not a full time one.
But you strike close to my real point: if one is required to pay 50K (or more) in loans for seminary, who can afford to be a priest - especially when the *real* education (pastoral care, liturgy, preaching, etc) happens in the parish. We end up expecting professionals.
A poor man better not get the call!
I work as an assistant priest in a large parish and make $46,000 per year. It sounds like a lot, but with an average workweek of about 55 hours (not including answering email and phone calls at home), the hourly breakdown means that I could make more as a senior barista at my local coffee bar.
Additionally, my loans from seminary means that I pay about $400 per month in addition to all my bills, I am required to drive fairly long distances to do hospital and nursing home visits (resulting in big gas bills for which I am not reimbursed), and on top of that I pledge 10% of my income to the parish. I am not permitted to keep any honoraria from weddings or funerals because it must go into my discretionary fund, so earning additional income is not possible. I have medical insurance, but no dental or vision, and I have both vision and dental problems.
Mind you, I’m not complaining: my vocation is a gift from God and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. I certainly didn’t enter the ministry for fame or fortune, but even with a very simple lifestyle I can barely keep my head above water.
Karen - $400 a month for student loans is astounding. Even in my very bad days of taking forbearances, I never broke $200 a month… this is what I’m talking about, in part. Our system requires you who would serve God to go in debt. And yes, we pay you for it - more than the average worker makes (not counting hourly wages - all salaried workers have that complaint, but let me come back to that in a minute).
But in requiring the education we do, we create the illusion of another class when, at the same time, we only further the American system of usury. All in the name of… what? Paying for Academicians who like to be Academicians, if I’m to believe what Juan Oliver wrote here. Why not let those with an academic interest pay for it themselves? And let those who have a different calling (Liturgical leader, pastor, whatever) take an apprenticeship someplace under a mentor and *not* go into debt?
There has to be a better way.
There is still the issue of paying “those who would be the servants of all” more than the median income in their communities. I think that’s a hard row to hoe in my socialist book. It goes up there with maintaining huge edifices instead of turning them into shelters for the homeless. That’s what first stunned me when I wrote this post, although in this conversation I’m coming to see it a different way.
Yes, there is the issue of just wages: and Karen makes the point that, even so, she’d earn more at a Coffee Shop (or as a Bartender, my buddy can take home $400 on an off night, easy). Is the issue the wage or the fact that we’re paying you to be a professional Christian when we’re too busy to do it ourselves?
A priest’s duties are, essentially, to live a Christian life and to bless and absolve. When we demand the priest to do things we *all* should be doing… and then underpay her anyway… gah.
I remember when my grandfather died. I received calls and emails from nearly everyone in my parish. But I didn’t hear from my priest. I was offended. Why was I not happy that the community of Christ had done what the community was supposed to have done? Because I was hung up on the “Professional Christian” model. But I wasn’t too good with my tithe, either.
How do we make the priesthood about that duty in the community rather than a “professional christian” and, then, can we pay a just wage for what we ask - and ask for a proper education for what we seek?
I’m not sure I can follow you in your socialist leanings, but I do agree that the system of education employed by many of the major denominations (and many of the evangelical churches, too) is inadequate.
I have long believed that the Church should pay for the education of those who serve in it. In our tradition, educational costs are kept to a minimum and the focus in on spiritual and liturgical growth. While priests are still expected to develop theologically, there is more emphasis on “hands-on” training.
It is interesting to note that our approach, like other churches, is modeled after the kind we find St. Paul utilizing in Scripture. In our tradition, as in the Friends tradition, ministers are expected to “tent-make.” Though this has its own short-comings, it does free the parish and the community from unnecessary burdens.
Personally, I think an answer to your question would lie along similar lines as these. Such an approach requires the clergy to be more “involved” in the community, earning a wage (ideally) that can support them, and also insuring they receive an education that equips them for the task.
Huw, I think you bring up some very important points. The “professional” ministry is a relatively new concept, and we’re expected to be good at all things like preaching, liturgy, pastoral care, accounting, personnel, and plumbing, which is ridiculously unrealistic. I believe we have come to this state in our church because culturally we are accustomed to having others do for us what we no longer have time or inclination to do. Sometimes I feel exactly the same way I did when I managed coffee bars in San Francisco or worked for Whole Foods. The expectation that we are service providers as opposed to servants of Christ means that we will always be a disappointment because expectations are so unrealistic.
Not only does this state of affairs create a dynamic of the clergy as just another segment of the service industry, but it hinders all the people of God from carrying out the mission of the Church. If I think about the fundamentals of my ministry, my calling as a priest is to the sacramental life. I preside at the Eucharist, perform baptisms, funerals, and weddings, and to exhort the Christian community to do their part to spread the word of God’s reign. Many of the other things I do, like teaching, preaching, curriculum development, hospital visits, and small group leadership, can easily be done by lay people without the benefit of an MDiv. Heck, I’m not even sure I needed an MDiv.
Now I serve in Nevada, which has been working with the idea of “total ministry” for some time. Most clergy are “tentmakers” with day jobs, and many have been locally trained in order to provide a sacramental presence in the tiny churches on the frontier. This model is certainly not perfect, but it is one that should be seriously looked at as a viable alternative to a system which is seriously disordered.
Thank you for providing much food for thought and discussion.
Fr Christopher - I do like the tent-maker model.
And Karen - the Nevada model (was that placed by the Now-PB?) sounds rather like what I found on the WNY diocese webpage yesterday in my clicking:
I note, also, that until recently, the Orthodox Church followed this model as well. The development of Orthodox seminaries, of course, has a long history. But in the USA the *requirement* of them for training is a recent thing. Many future-clergy simply grew up in ministry and one day, following the “lunch with the bishop” they were priested.
I see the dangers of that system: having met enough superstitious clergy and laity in my time.
But I meet very few clergy with student loan bills!
I have resisted writing a comment on this thread because I do not want to give the impression that I think that I am underpaid. But a whole lot does go into full-time ministry. In reality a priest does more than just bless and absolve, and I say this as someone who is an assistant pastor at a giant cathedral with a full staff. Part of this may be because I am in a heavily “ethnic” parish, but nevertheless - I am basically shot out of a cannon in the morning each day and eventually collapse early morning the next day (to paraphrase Ozzy). My activities are all over the place, very interesting, and often very stressful. And I love every minute of it.
As for the Orthodox here in America…it is true that some jurisdictions have ordained anyone that was deemed worthy. I do know that my own jurisdiction, the GOA, has since the 1930s only ordained people who went through seminary here or overseas.
Fr G - in having this discussion I’ve realised it’s not the money, per se, it’s what we expect you to do. Yes, you *do* do a lot more than Bless and Absolve: but is that right? Are we expecting our clergy to be something so that the rest of us are not?