Chapter V. Support of Pastors

“ Know you not,” says St Paul, “‘ that they who work in the holy place eat the things that are of the holy place; and they that serve the altar partake with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel.”¹ As, then, there was special provision made by God for the support of the priests and the maintenance of religion under the Old Law, so under the New Law our Lord commanded that his ministers should be supported by those to whom they ministered. The faithful, then, are bound by divine precept to contribute according to their means to the support of their pastors.

The method of fulfilling this duty has varied at different times; nowadays, at least in English-speaking countries, the offerings of the faithful are almost the only source of church revenue, as they were in the first ages of Christianity. The Church urges this divine precept and further determines it either by universal law or by provincial and diocesan regulations.²

¹ 1 Cor. ix 13, 14.

² Cf. 1 West., d. 23, nn. 4, 5; 2 West., d. 8; 3 Plen. Baltim., tit. 9; can. 1496.

Ministers of religion have a right in justice to decent support, for from the fact that they are put by lawful authority in spiritual charge of a parish or mission, the people under their care are bound by an implicit contract to support them, just as citizens are bound to support temporal rulers, magistrates, and officials.¹ The obligation, then, to support one’s pastors is grave, but it is difficult to determine when mortal sin is committed in particular cases by failing to comply with this duty. Much depends on the degree of necessity in which a pastor is placed, and on the means of the parishioner, The sacraments and ministrations of the Church should never be refused to the poor who cannot pay the usual fee, nor more especially is the priest justified in refusing the consolations of religion to dying people on the ground that they neglected the duty of supporting their pastors during life. The priest is bound by other ties to his flock than by the hope of earthly reward,

¹ St Thomas, Summa, 2-2, q. 87, a. 1.