NO COVID PAY FOR PRIESTS FORCED TO SURVIVE ON SAVINGS
PRIESTS across the country have been forced to rely on their savings to survive as Mass collections are not taking place and they do not qualify for the Covid-19 unemployment payment.
And while parishioners have been trying their best to support them, lockdown restrictions and unfamiliarity with technology have meant they are unable to either drop in funds or to donate online.
One of the country’s highest profile priests, Dancing With The Stars contestant Fr Ray Kelly, told the Irish Mail on Sunday many priests, especially those in rural parishes, are ‘just surviving and relying on their savings’.
Only priests in the Dublin diocese receive a salary. For priests in rural parishes a portion of the weekly plate collection at Masses is their primary source of income. Since services stopped last March income has dwindled to a trickle.
Fr Kelly, who is based in Oldcastle, Co. Meath, said: ‘At the moment most of us would have a few bob saved and many would be using that for day-to-day living.
‘We are surviving but that’s about it; certainly our income has drastically reduced. One of the issues in a place like ours is that many parishioners live outside the 2km travel restricted zone that was in place until recently and as a result couldn’t get in to drop their weekly donations to the parochial house,’ he said.
‘What I have noticed is that you’d maybe get a few calls to say a private Mass for someone with a deceased or ill family member. And when you do that people will kind of go out of their way to drop you in a few bob. Most priests are regarded as self-employed, and as technically we haven’t lost our jobs we can’t, for example, claim the Covid-19 social welfare payment, but we still have day-to-day bills to meet.’
In the rural parish of Kiltane in Mayo, Fr James Cribben believes parishes may have to seek loans from the Bishop of Killala if the situation persists but he said: ‘That would be a long way down the road, though.
‘The health and safety of our parishioners is the most important thing at the moment.
‘Every euro that comes in at the moment is going out again straight away on bills and there are a lot less euros coming in than there normally would be.
‘Look, let’s be fair about it, this whole thing has left most families with little or any surplus money so church donations wouldn’t be the foremost thing in their mind. It’s tough times for everybody.’
Fr Cribben said it was a struggle right now but he hoped things would ease in July when services may be allowed to resume.
Meanwhile, a former priest has told the MoS that the basic salary of a rural priest would be below the minimum wage. He said: ‘There is an assumption out there that the priest keeps all the money collected at Mass but that’s incorrect.
‘All the bills are taken care of from that – heat and lighting for the chapel and the parochial house, all the basic utility bills. And remember he is effectively running two houses, and the priest gets paid from what is left over, and believe me that is not a huge amount.
‘Against that, though, their food and board is covered which shouldn’t be forgotten, and there are additional ways of earning money, but even those have been hit badly during this pandemic.’
He said the rural priest’s main source of income would be offerings made during the four offering periods of the year – at Easter, in June, in the autumn and at Christmas.
‘They are voluntary contributions, usually handed in at a Mass, and are generally used for a priest’s wages. And this year the first two have been missed because there have been no Masses, and the third one is far from certain,’ the priest said.
Fr John Collins, the parish priest in Swords, Co. Dublin, is a spokesman for the Association of Catholic Priests and he confirmed that the clergy’s basic wage is substantially lower than most workers.
‘Priests in the Dublin diocese are on a salary and all have agreed to a 25% reduction in that starting next month,’ he said.
‘There are two collections at Masses in Dublin, the first one is for the priests of the parish, priests who are sick and to cover the costs of priests in nursing homes, the second is what is called a shared collection, in which the more affluent parishes will contribute to a common fund to help the less well off areas.
‘As neither of those sources of income have been available for some months naturally enough problems are starting to arise.
However, he added: ‘One thing we are hearing a lot of anecdotal evidence about is that parishioners are contacting their priests and saying that they are putting a few bob away each week and will hand it over when services recommence, hopefully in July.’
‘Priests in Dublin agreed a 25% cut’