Case XII: The Adjusting of Mass Stipends

A certain pastor, whom we may call Practicus, has many Mass stipends left to his church, and is obliged to a considerable extent to have them attended to by brother priests. As the stipend for some of these Masses, however, does not come up to the amount of one dollar, this being the usual stipend in his diocese, he has difficulties in placing them. He helps himself in this embarrassment by using the surplus of other more liberally feed Masses to make up the deficiency and to bring the stipend up to the usual amount. Thus he finds himself enabled to have all the Masses attended to. He satisfies his conscience with the argument that he does not retain any of the money, nor any part thereof, but that he is turning over the whole of it, though the amount of some particular stipend is in some cases divided and goes to different hands.

The question whether such a procedure is permissible must be answered with "No."

It is the law that the full stipend—certain exceptions need not be taken into consideration here—must be handed over to the one performing the obligation, and it is not permissible to use the excess of one stipend to make up the deficiency of another. The person donating the higher stipend expects the celebrant to receive the full amount donated, his intention evidently being the desire that his larger offering bring greater benefit. St. Alphonsus writes on this subject as follows (Lib. vi. 322):

The intention of the giver is not only that Mass be celebrated, but that it be celebrated for such a stipend; for when he gives a generous offering, he gives it with the intention that he may receive a more abundant fruit from the Mass to be celebrated; therefore he who, after handing over a smaller stipend, has another celebrate it sins against justice, not because he defrauds the person giving the alms of the fruit of the Mass—for he already receives the fruit here from his previously formed pious disposition—but because he does not carry out the giver’s intention, by which he wills that the Mass from which he receives the fruit be celebrated for such a stipend.

No objection could, of course, be had if the pastor hand a number of both under as well as overpaid Masses to one and the same priest, in whose hands they would then average to the stipend usual in the diocese.