- Feb 5, 2002
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By now the Catholic Church’s support of a “living wage” (along with the related but differing “just wage”) is well known. Magisterial social teaching, along with the documents of synods and bishops’ conferences, since the promulgation of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum has consistently upheld his declaration that one “has a natural right to procure what is required in order to live” (Rerum Novarum §44). In the United States, the position of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development is emblematic in its advocacy for just wages and dignified work for all capable of working. Despite this consistency in Church teaching aimed primarily ad extra, which is to say at non-ecclesial ownership, management, and labor, little attention has been given to the need for just wages for the Church’s own employees.
The issue is not merely a theoretical one for me. I have been a teacher at a diocesan high school and a campus minister on several college campuses. I have experienced what it is like to saddle a $50,000 college debt for a master’s degree in theology only to make less than $25,000 at a diocesan job. Now, as a theology professor at a private Catholic institution that is well respected in our local community, I am sending graduates out to our local and regional dioceses to serve in their chancery offices, schools, and parishes. Students are confronted with the dispiriting reality that working for the Church typically means needing two incomes to support a family (Lord have mercy on those Church employees who dare marry another Church employee), having health benefits designed solely for a single person, and, as scandalous as it may be post-Dobbs, rarely having paid maternity or paternity leave.
They do not walk into this blindly. I have made it a tradition in my evangelization and catechesis class to give them “the talk”—a sobering lecture that explains the current state of compensation for Church employees. This includes the fact that, according to a study done six years ago, full-time youth ministers (mind you, in our diocese of Baton Rouge, full-time positions tend to be found only in our few wealthiest parishes) make, on average, $38,586 and part-time ministers $14,324.[1] In our diocese in 2024, monthly health insurance premiums for a married employee and her family cost $1,389.85 per month.[2] The $16,678.20 spent on those premiums yields a more realistic yearly income of $21,908, obviously well below most measures of a living wage, even for one person. Our diocese, like the majority of those in the U.S., does not offer fully paid parental leave.[3]
Continued below.
churchlifejournal.nd.edu
The issue is not merely a theoretical one for me. I have been a teacher at a diocesan high school and a campus minister on several college campuses. I have experienced what it is like to saddle a $50,000 college debt for a master’s degree in theology only to make less than $25,000 at a diocesan job. Now, as a theology professor at a private Catholic institution that is well respected in our local community, I am sending graduates out to our local and regional dioceses to serve in their chancery offices, schools, and parishes. Students are confronted with the dispiriting reality that working for the Church typically means needing two incomes to support a family (Lord have mercy on those Church employees who dare marry another Church employee), having health benefits designed solely for a single person, and, as scandalous as it may be post-Dobbs, rarely having paid maternity or paternity leave.
They do not walk into this blindly. I have made it a tradition in my evangelization and catechesis class to give them “the talk”—a sobering lecture that explains the current state of compensation for Church employees. This includes the fact that, according to a study done six years ago, full-time youth ministers (mind you, in our diocese of Baton Rouge, full-time positions tend to be found only in our few wealthiest parishes) make, on average, $38,586 and part-time ministers $14,324.[1] In our diocese in 2024, monthly health insurance premiums for a married employee and her family cost $1,389.85 per month.[2] The $16,678.20 spent on those premiums yields a more realistic yearly income of $21,908, obviously well below most measures of a living wage, even for one person. Our diocese, like the majority of those in the U.S., does not offer fully paid parental leave.[3]
Continued below.
A Just Wage for Church Employees: A Call to Conversion
Brian Pedraza on Church teaching.
churchlifejournal.nd.edu
