The following is from the Office of the Bishop of the Diocese of Sacramento:
February 9, 2021
Dear Pastors, Parochial Administrators, Parish Stewards, School Administrators, and Agency Directors:
Each year, I publish a salary adjustment guideline that serves as the guideline for lay employees and priests employed by our parishes, schools, agencies, and administrative offices of the diocese. Catholic school teacher salaries will be addressed in a separate communication. For all non-teacher lay employees and all priests, I offer the following guideline for 2021/2022 salary adjustments:
For Lay Employees – no increase;
For all Priests – no increase and no years-of-service step increase.
It is my judgement that the significant and ongoing financial impact of the Pandemic upon our parishes, schools, and agencies is such that it would be imprudent to further stress budgets at a time when most are struggling just to retain staffing. I consulted with the Diocesan Finance Council and my own staff in coming to this judgement.
I appreciate the persevering pastoral devotion of all the clergy, laity and religious to the People of God in these worrisome times.
You labor selflessly to be good stewards as well as fervent coworkers of the Lord Jesus. Be assured of my abiding prayers as I rely on yours. May the intercession of St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary join with our supplications for God’s mercy to bring an end to the pandemic, heal all who are afflicted, provide protection to those who care for them, and console the families of those who have died.
Respectfully,
+Jaime Soto Bishop of Sacramento
Full story at Diocese of Sacramento.
“Be assured of my abiding prayers…” Prayers don’t cut it when there are bills to pay, children to feed, rent or a mortgage, insurance, and retirement to save for. Everything church employees have to buy has increased in price, so now they have to make their low salaries stretch even further. Church employees are falling behind. Church employees work for a poverty salary as it is, and now it will be worse. Employees of the Catholic Church need to realize that it’s the year 2008 and their employer is Blockbuster Video. Do you see any Blockbuster Videos around anymore? The church is entering a death spiral in which they will lose talent and not be able to attract talent, and there will be smaller congregations and even lower offertories. A death spiral. If God wants his church staffed with talented, knowledgeable, excellent, competent employees, he needs to provide for them to be paid a decent professional salary. If bishops and pastors want their parishes to be staffed with good employees, they need to have attractive employment terms, which is primarily an attractive, professional salary. This is on God and on the bishops. Oh, and the bishop ends with the obligatory appeals to Mary and Joseph. Well, let’s see what their intercession does. The consecrations of the state and various dioceses didn’t do anything. This pandemic is exposing the impotence of the church.
Oh, how about this: stop sending money to the USCCB and the California Catholic Conference. Then the diocese should be able to afford to pay its employees much more. Who needs the USCCB and the CCC with their extensive staffs? The USCCB recently increased the tax that it assesses each diocese. Can you believe it? It’s a bloated bureaucracy. Heaven knows the new executive director of the CCC is being paid well. The elites in the church are comfy and the little people are treated with disregard, as chattel.
No one has to work there. If the pay does not meet their needs, they can seek employment elsewhere.
When we grew up, we were taught that the world doesn’t owe you anything.
No, the world doesn’t owe you anything, but we were also taught that you get what you pay for, and that includes the church concerning her employees.
Kevin T. mocks the Bishop’s call to prayer and says that instead he needs to pay competitive salaries to keep talented people in the Church employed. Kevin T. should make it clear that he is in favor of the faithful upping their contributions to parishes and even to dioceses if he wants to be consistent in supporting local churches but not the USCCB and the CCC. And moreover, his observations that the Church is “in a death spiral” betrays his sorry lack of faith in Our Lord’s words that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” His Church. A total lack of faith. Like zero. Ask for more faith for yourself, Kevin T.
Jon, did you read the article a few stories earlier about how many Catholic schools have closed? It’s lean times for the church all around.
“For all non-teacher lay employees and all priests,” really? This story brings up a painful memory for me. Years ago, I was a (full-time professional) lay minister. I served for a number of years at a couple of Bay Area parishes. The parish I served decided to open a school. It was to be a part of the parish’s ministry and not a separate institution sharing a name and parking lot. Parish and school staff regularly met, ate and socialized together. Until there was a budget tightening. The pastor informed us that we would all be taking major pay reductions. That pain was to be spread out equally among us on the staff. Unfortunately, the diocese stepped in told the pastor he had to give the school teachers raises. So, teachers received raises while lay members of the pastoral staff were laid off or had their salaries significantly reduced. We were told we were all part of the Church, like a family. No family would do that. Family members are willing to share the burdens and pains of life. So, to see Bishop Soto indicate “for all non-teacher lay employees and all priests” means the double-standard continues. Please don’t misunderstand, I also taught in a Catholic school for years and have regard and respect for teachers. It’s just double-standards that are troubling.
That’s because bishops and priests realize their schools are competing with the outstanding education offered in public schools. If they don’t pay teachers decently, those teachers will teach in public schools, and Catholic schools will suffer quality decline and enrollment decline even more than they already are. Bishops know their Catholic schools are vulnerable. Bishops and priests don’t care about parish staff. They don’t care about the quality of music nor CCD offered at parishes. If they did care, they’d pay better salaries to get better directors and staff members. If the music at your parish is terrible, and it is awful at about 90% of Catholic churches, and if that continues for more than three months, then someone has decided to accept having bad music at Mass. Someone has chosen to have bad music. That decision could be rectified quickly by firing whoever isn’t up to snuff and paying for a more skilled employee who would do a better job. Do you think all those tech companies in the Bay Area succeeded by paying low salaries for mediocre employees? Nope. Over 80% of high schoolers who receive Confirmation drop out of the parish the next year, and most leave the Catholic faith. That tells you Catholic CCD is failing. But the bishops don’t care. They just confirm thousands of kids every year knowing and not caring that it’s pretty much a goodbye ritual for 80% of the kids whose foreheads they are anointing. Sad.
I served on a parish finance council for many years. Our annual financial report to the parishioners included a breakdown of offerings received by categories such as families using envelopes, electronic transfer, and cash in the basket. We compared that the average number of families attending Mass each week. Those using envelopes tended to give about $1,200 per year, those using EFT about $1,800 per year and those dropping cash in the basket about $100 per year. This was in a parish with average family incomes over $75,000 per year and average home prices over $500,000, ten years ago. A friend who was on the finance committee of his Evangelical church told me that the average family in his congregation gave in excess of $5,000 per year, because they tithed. They educated their parishioners t give to the church first, and use the remainder for rent, food, gas, etc. This article is about available money and its sources. Maybe the annual sermon on stewardship could include the concept of “offering” rather than “collection?”
How would you know how much those dropping in cash gave per year?
How to tithe: Take your before tax income. Divide it by 10. Give that to the Church.
I give half of it to the local parish, then 2/5 to the diocese then 3/5 spread out to the special collections and other charities.
Bishop, could this article be wrong? How much did the Diocese of Sacramento take from PPP during this scamdemic?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/catholic-church-usd3-billion-taxpayer-backed-pandemic-aid-ppp-paycheck-protection.html