Laypeople who make a living in the church love what they do-but don't always love the pay.

Since the beginning Christian leaders have taken these words of Jesus quite literally: "Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in heaven" (Matt. 5:12). If you worked for the church, you were expected to defray the greater part of your earnings indefinitely, cashing in, so to speak, only after crossing through the pearly gates. That worked relatively well for many years, thanks to the abundant supply of sisters, priests, and brothers who chose lives of poverty while tilling the fields of the Lord. But with the ever-diminishing supply of such laborers during the past 35 years, we have moved into the age of the laity-a fascinating, hitherto unexplored era for Catholicism.

One indicator of change is that since 1997 there are more paid, professional lay ministers than priests working in U.S. parishes, and the gap continues to grow. Another is that in 1990, 41 percent of parish ministers were women religious; today they comprise 17 percent, and that percentage also continues to decline. Bishops and other church leaders realize the trend is not going to reverse itself; some 18,000 Catholics currently are training for lay ministry in the U.S., almost six times the number of seminarians.

In Co-workers in the Vineyard of the Lord, the U.S. Catholic bishops said last November, "Lay ecclesial ministry has emerged and taken shape in our country through the working of the Holy Spirit. Sharing in the function of Christ, priest, prophet, and king, the laity have an active part of their own in the life and activity of the church." Obviously the laity have advanced beyond their old "pray, pay, and obey" status, and the lay ministry field has become powerfully attractive to many Catholics.


Less is more
Joan Kelly, for example, took a 60 percent pay cut when she quit her job as vice president at a major Chicago bank two years ago. She exchanged her 20-year corporate lifestyle, a hefty salary, and many perks for a position as secretary and office manager for a 1,500-family suburban parish. "Partly I was burnt out," she says, "and I saw this as something different, maybe where I'd get some sense of social reward.

"Now I'm at the bottom," laughs Kelly, a cheerful, energetic 46-year-old workhorse in the rectory. "I'm sealing envelopes, entering contributions in the books, upgrading the phone and computer system. I still can't believe I have to order supplies. I used to leave a note on somebody's desk at the bank and they'd just take care of it."

She lists some other changes: no cleaning lady; a very different and limited clothing budget; a major cutback on restaurant dinners and entertainment; heavy reliance on the salary of her husband, a painter; and having to say no more often to her three teenage daughters. And the advantages?

"There are spiritual rewards when you don't measure all your decisions in dollars," she says. "There are a lot of sacred moments here," when strangers come to the door needing help, when parishioners drop in to discuss important things. "I see now how incredibly privileged we are," Kelly explains. "I didn't get it before."

Her daughters, who at first objected to the budget limitations, are starting to get it, too. "One said to me just lately, ‘Mom, I can see why you left the bank.'?" It's little things like this that make her think the pay cut was worthwhile.

But the Kelly family's willingness to take a large cut in income makes them a bit unusual among lay church workers today. A major issue for the 21st-century church is compensation for these co-workers in the vineyard. Most laypersons don't have the luxury of defraying earnings to the next life. Single or married, they require and deserve salary and benefits equal to that earned by their peers in other professions.

When looking at the state of compensation today for laypeople working in parishes, most of the available information is on "lay ministers," those trained in church-related specialties like theology or liturgy and employed on parish pastoral staffs. Limited information also exists on "lay employees," which includes maintenance personnel, business managers, secretaries, and others serving parishes.

In addition, laypeople work in many other Catholic settings-in parochial schools and universities, in hospitals and Catholic Charities centers, in cemeteries and diocesan offices. But their pay and benefits are so varied that accurate comparative analysis is impossible. Besides, the parish remains the basic building block of the church, and it's where the vast majority of the new lay workers can be found.

Two recent studies examined the state of compensation today, one by the National Association of Church Personnel Administrators, published last August, the other by the National Pastoral Life Center, released in November. The Pastoral Life study was based on information from 928 U.S. parishes and individual responses from 732 lay ministers and 336 pastors. It was commissioned by the Committee on the Laity of the U.S. bishops' conference, funded by the Lilly Foundation, and directed by David DeLambo, associate director of pastoral planning for the Cleveland diocese. This is the third national study of lay ministry that DeLambo, a sociologist, has overseen.

He found that there are now 30,632 paid lay ministers working at least 20 hours a week in parishes, a 5 percent increase over 1997 and a 35 percent increase between 1990 and 1997. By "lay," the study understands both laypersons and vowed religious working in paid positions as members of pastoral staffs. Not included in the study are business managers, maintenance personnel, and other support staff.

The average salary of full-time ministers in the six categories studied was $35,261. Current salaries represent striking increases since 1990 (see graph below). The greatest relative increase is 189 percent in the "other ministers" category (a catch-all for positions like family minister, social concerns minister, minister to the bereaved). The general ministry category, which includes pastoral associates and pastoral administrators, has a salary average of $34,048, showing a 125 percent increase over 1990. The largest average salary, $42,778 for music ministers, represents a 145 percent increase over the 1990 figure.


Singing for his supper
At 59, Christopher Walker has the kind of job many of his colleagues in the church dream about. He is the music director at a large Los Angeles parish, where he earns a yearly salary typical of those who, like him, have been at their present post for 15 years-usually in the area of $45,000$50,000. It's a demanding job, he says, swallowing up his weekends, often filling his week with funeral liturgies and stretching his schedule to 50 or 60 hours a week in busy holiday seasons.

"But that's alright," says Walker, who is single. "I don't see this as work. I feel a real sense of ministry. I see lives changed, not just by a piece of music, but by the way it's played."

Can he make a living on his parish earnings in high-priced L.A.? "Just barely," says Walker.

Fortunately he is also an internationally known lecturer, composer, conductor, and retreat master for church musicians. So his income is happily supplemented by stipends for his talks and workshops and royalties on his published music, the best known being the popular "Celtic Alleluia." Fortunately, too, he has a pastor and parish who give him the freedom to share his wisdom and musical skills widely.

However, the gains in lay ministers' salaries in the past 15 years are not quite as breathtaking as they appear, since inflation and the cost of living have lessened the value of the dollar. Even so, the gain is still an additional 8 percent, or about $4,000 more than in 1997 dollars.