The Bottom Dollar

In my Basic Christian Ethics class today, we discussed Anthony Trollope's novel, The Warden (1855). The story is concerned with a priest in the Church of England who receives a large sum of money for a position in which he actually does very little work, while the old men in the almshouse or hospital (modern equivalent: nursing home or assisted living facility) that he oversees remain in a basic level of poverty. The position was originally created by someone's will, who left a fixed sum of money to the men in the almshouse and decreed that the extra generated by the lands owned by this man should go to the priest in charge of the hospital. Only problem is, when the will was first established, the land was mostly farmland, generating a small income. At the time the novel takes place, it is 400 years later, and the land is now suburban land that has been developed and brings in a huge amount of rental income -- so the priest now receives approximately 10 times the amount of a normal priest's salary, while the situation of the men who are the beneficiaries of the will has remained unchanged.

Discussing this ethical situation has gotten me to thinking about the role of money and salaries in priests' discernment of their calling. Our professor informed us that the Church of England now has a system in which all priests are paid the same amount, and it's barely enough to live on. In the American Episcopal Church, however, the salaries of priests vary quite widely, from barely enough to live on in some smaller parishes to upwards of six-figure salaries in some of the wealthy and endowed parishes. So what happens when, as a priest, you are job-hunting and you find that there is a $35,000/year job serving as the rector of a very small parish in a poor part of town, where you will be the only staff member of the parish, or a $150,000/year job serving in a wealthy urban parish where you will be supported by a staff of 20+ people, including four other priests to share the load of priestly duties (celebrating Eucharist, preaching, visiting people in hospitals, leading adult education forums, etc)? Which position would YOU hope you would get, if they chose you? But what if God is actually calling you to serve among the poorer population, even if it means more work and less money? It seems to me it would be rather convenient to take the money question out of the equation -- if we had a system like the Church of England, where all priests were paid the same amount, we could focus solely on the job and the sense of calling rather than worrying about our salaries.

On the other hand, I could see this creating a problem much like the problem in the education system in America -- teachers are paid so low wages that no one is willing to take on the jobs for the amount of work they require. People always say of the so-called "helping professions" that "you don't do it for the money," and consider this to be a good thing, thinking that one's motivation is somehow more pure if money is not part of the equation. But there's also a problem if the people serving in these positions are not able to maintain a reasonable standard of living.

Thoughts?