Why does a priest need $250K year salary?

[gbate]

No, this is not a joke, but I guess it should be.

A friend of mine reported to me that her brother, a protestant minister, will be making a quarter million salary at his new church.

Shouldn't the church be spending its money on helping others rather than over-paying the leaders??

[jobycom]

1. Hush money.

Gotta pay off witnesses, gambling debts. It's expensive.

[baldguy]

4. Chateau Mouton Rothschild as communion wine.

[jobycom]

8. Only the best for the blood of our lord. nt

[JonLP24]

2. Damn, that is more then my governor makes

Yikes!

[TZ]

3. don't get me started

I had a friend that went to a church in DC where not only did the priest make 6 figures, he drove a cadillac AND he GOT HIS PARISHONERS TO PAY FOR HIS KIDS COLLEGE TUITION AND BOOKS. And this was a very poor group of parishoners.
Flame all you want, but this is con artistry of the worst sort to me.

[LynneSin]

5. Seems a bit out of line

I started going to a new church again and picked up some brochures about the church including their annual report and budget. Their salary for 3 preachers was a combined $200k. Add in the fact that room & board are normally provided and I think that came to about $350k annually. That was for THREE pastors that work for the church, not one. I thought that was pretty reasonable. I was always under the impression that a home was provided for the pastors and they do deserve the right to earn a decent salary.

Not sure about the pastor you're talking about but I'd check to see if that $250k includes the cost for things like the home he/she was provided along with health care. You might find that the total costs for everything adds up to $250k but he/she is only making perhaps $75k take home.

As for someone mentioning that a preacher had a cadillac consider this - home visits are part of the job of a pastor and many times they help out with getting members to & from places (I know our pastor went to the hospital with us a few times and when he went he would drive). So a Pastor isn't going to be getting a Ford Focus but some sort of sedan that would be comfortable enough to carry passengers, some that may not be of good health.

[TZ]

11. And the part where the pastor got his poor parishoners to pay for his kids college funds?

This man also ran for Mayor of Washington too. I'm sure Church funds were used for that. Sorry..if you live in a poor parish, you should not be driving a LUXURY car around and taking their money for your personal use.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Anyone in a mainline denomination who tried that

would be disciplined by the church authorities. Clergy people are not supposed to use the church as a personal bank, and the finances are supposed to be controlled by a committee of lay people elected from the congregation.

With free-lance fundamentalists, all bets are off.

[Critters2]

28. If the church is tax-exempt, church funds can't be used for partisan political purposes.

And the IRS would really come down on that.

You're building a mighty impressive straw man, there, friend.

[Critters2]

27. I drive a Ford Focus.

I must not be doing this right.

[DS1]

6. $5,000 per Sunday sermon, before taxes

[charlie and algernon]

7. wow

my hometown church is run by Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, so the priests have to use the provided housing next to the church and use the parish car.

[mainegreen]

9. How big is his church?

If he crams 20,000 in, I'd say that sounds reasonable.
If we're talking 1,000, not so much.

[HopeHoops]

10. Presents for alter boys?

Seems reasonable.

[LanternWaste]

12. That's over ten times the amount my pastor makes...

That's over ten times the amount my pastor makes (he's pretty open about church books).

I doubt anyone *needs* 250k/year, but, well... nice work if you can get and still sleep the sleep of the just. :shrug:

[mwooldri]

13. That's about $150,000 more than the Archbishop of Canterbury!

In 2000, the Archbishop was on about £56,000 a year. Yes, he had his home provided for him and other stuff - but that's his salary.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. What denominiation? It makes a difference

If it's a standard mainline denomination (the much-maligned "organized religion"), they have salary scales based on the size of the church and the clergyperson's experience.

If it's a free-lance "non-denominational" fundamentalist church (unorganized religion), a lot of those are money-making schemes with no oversight.

[struggle4progress]

37. Good question. I never attended a church where the pastor made anything like that

[av8rdave]

15. I never thought a priest/pastor should have to take a vow of poverty, but...

When they're making vast amounts of money, the priorities seem a little bit wrong.

I was discussing this with a friend a couple of years ago, when it was revealed that the pastor of one of the larger Dallas area churches was making that kind of money. My friend felt that it was appropriate, since this pastor has so many in his congregation. He argued that it was no different than the way the business world works.

Guess I just never thought of churches as businesses, although in reality most of them are.

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. If he's Protestant, he's not a priest, he's a minister.

Ministers in large churches tend to make a fair bit of cashola, as do ministers in churches that have a congregation of high earners.

One of the reasons is that, in the Protestant tradition, the minister should be allowed a lifestyle similar to that of the average congregant, so as to be able to afford to live in the community where the church is, and so as to be able to frequent the kind of places his/her parishioners frequent.

However, if it's an Evangelican, non-denomination, or mega-church situation, the pastors often are able to just declare what their salary will be and take whatever they want, or will have a deal about income as some percentage of what he is able to generate in income. It's a total business-oriented mindset that drives me insane about the non-traditional churches.

Seriously, with the small bit of data you offered, we can't offer you any help in decoding what's going on.

[Critters2]

22. 'the minister should be allowed a lifestyle similar to that of the average congregant,"

Really? Since when?

Critters
who lives in a neighborhood her parishioners are afraid to visit after dark

[Rabrrrrrr]

29. Clearly, not all churches do this, and probably less so in the mainlines than others

But absolutely many do; and I imagine it's the official recommendation of the "higher authorities" of every denomination.

[Critters2]

33. At my last call, I didn't have a garage. It didin't bother me at first,

until we had a REALLY bad winter. My car was always having trouble starting, it took forever to get the snow off of it, etc. During that winter, I began to pay attention when I visited homes, and realized EVERYONE in this church had a garage, but me. So, when the C&M committee came to do my "every 3 year" eval, I raised this issue. Then the committee met with my church council. I have no idea waht they said, but they put the fear of God into 'em. Within two weeks, the congregation ordered and installed one of those metal hoop house looking garage things, which was fine for me. It served the purpose. What was funny, though, was that, after the garage was built, people complained that it was ugly, and I should have a nicer one. Just struck me as chucklesome.

In general, in the UCC, the judicatories can make suggestions, but have little power to enforce salary and benefit guidelines.

[Deep13]

23. "...similar to that of the average congregant..."

Holy shit! Holy Church of Beverly Hills. What church has an average personal income of a quarter million bucks.

And "minister" is just what Protestants call priests just as Muslims call them imans and Jews call them Rabbis. If you preside over a temple, you are a priest. The Protestants created the fiction that unlike R.Catholics and nonchristian religions, they did not have temples, but merely meeting houses for worshipping a real god as opposed to the idols of everyone else's religion. Evangelicals still cling to this fiction claiming that fundamentalist Christianity is simply a fact of life and not a religion.

[Rabrrrrrr]

26. Thanks for the deep insight into the fiction of the Protestant movement

:eyes:

[Deep13]

34. Don't mean to be singling Protestants out.

I used to be one (sort of, "high" Episcopal). All religions claim unique superiority in one way or another. The RC church claims a divine warrant from St. Peter. The orthodoxy can (I don't know if they do) claim to be the original church authorized at Nicea. Of course Muslims could claim the most recent revelation at least until the 19th century when the Mormons came along.

[Critters2]

36. Yeah. I'm a priest. You can't get to God 'less you go through me.

:eyes:

[Rabrrrrrr]

39. I bet you secretly transubstantiate the bread and wine, too.

You're all Catholic spies!

I'm sure of it now.

[no name no slogan]

31. Actually, Muslim prayer leaders are called "Imams"

"Iman" is Mrs. David Bowie. :)

[Deep13]

32. Right, sorry.

I have a pretty loose grip on spelling sometimes.

[mitchum]

18. Because Jesus was raking it in!

Wait a minute...he wasn't.
Fucking grifters.

[Deja Q]

19. Lawyer fees

[Rambis]

20. Have you seen the price of drink?

for god sakes!:evilgrin:

[Moondog]

21. It's a business, like any other.

I guess those guys think what's the point in being HMFIC if you can't rip it off. Personally, I don't get it.

[Arugula Latte]

24. Religion is big business. What a scam. What a sham.

[MilesColtrane]

25. Can't have those preaching the gospel of wealth walking around in off the rack suits.

[datasuspect]

30. candy, comic books, x box games?

[Coyote_Bandit]

35. In some protestant circles

prosperity is a measure of godliness.

Sad but true.

[timtom]

38. I don't want to be too quick to judge,

but, initially, I would guess that he has an imperfect and incomplete understanding of his faith.

[gmoney]

40. It's in the bible... the vow of affluence.

Jesus was all about the Benjamins...