The following schedule is intended to provide guidance regarding compensation for priests who render occasional priestly ministry in parishes but are not canonically assigned to an office in the parish. The following suggested norms were approved by the Presbyteral Council on March 19, 2018:

Weekday Mass – $50.00 plus stipend

Saturday Vigil Mass – $100.00 plus stipend

Sunday Mass – $100.00 plus stipend (Note: If the priest not assigned to the parish does more than one Mass on a Sunday, it is understood that the pastor might offer a lesser amount of compensation for the additional Mass).

Confessions – $50.00

This memorandum was intended to supersede the previous Stipend for Priests memorandum of February 27, 2006.

PLEASE NOTE:  Canon 951, §1, permits priests to keep one Mass stipend per day [except for Christmas, when he can accept the stipends for up to three Masses]. Additional stipends are to be transferred “to the purposes prescribed by the ordinary [Diocesan Bishop or Vicar General].” While Canon Law is silent on how often these additional stipends are to be sent to the ordinary, Bishop Parkes requests that excess stipends be sent to the Vicar General annually, with notations of the particular Mass intentions, at the end of the fiscal year, June 30. If a pastor wishes to send the excess offerings to a charitable cause which the parish is supporting [e.g., a parish with which the parish is “twinning,” a seminary in a poorer diocese, etc.], he must clarify this with the Vicar General and send him an annual report, at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, with a record of the contributions made to the entity.