This is about the 113th letter I’ve received along the following lines, and I post it just to underscore the reality of the problem: the Catholic Church in the United States does not pay its musicians. Paying musicians does not guarantee good music, but insofar as there is a systematic bias against paying musicians, the professionals, the people truly talented and serious, are going to go elsewhere. Letter edited slightly to remove some detail.
I am extremely appreciative of your work in supporting good liturgy. I’ve been an organist and choirmaster for more 20 years now. Most of that time has been spent in Roman Catholic churches in my area. For the past five years, I’ve been playing in Episcopal and Anglican circles. The reason for this is relatively simple. The Dioceses appear incapable of paying their musicians according to the market standard. I’ve recently applied and received offers from two of the wealthiest suburban parishes in the Diocese. These churches which are bringing in – in excess of $25 to $30,000 a weekend, were unwilling to offer me more than $75 for a mass. This is less than half of what I earn in an Anglican parish with a mere 100 parishioners. Stories of unpaid (ie. inexperienced) Catholic volunteers abound. Then of course there is the music…. While I would love to lead a traditional program, I can count the parishes that would be willing to support such programs on one hand. A job posting I just read off the “Office of Divine Worship” web-site this morning was looking for someone with PIANO skills (organ if possible).
I’ll say again what has been said a million times: folks, we have a problem, and it comes down to an institutionalized undervaluing of musical talent.
I think that the reticence to pay musicians what they are worth (their weight in gold, when they are good ones) is not a problem, but a symptom of something much greater. Catholics are cheap. It is as simple as that. Excepting families which are in difficult financial straits, families with lots of children and the current economic climate, Catholics are abysmal when it comes to giving to their parishes.
Protestants have a vested interest in their churches' survival: if they don't pay, their doors don't stay open. Some Catholics tend to think that parishes are just there to give them what they want when they want it how they want it. Very few understand what it takes to run a parish, and to pay people what they are worth . . . wow, if people only knew! (That is partially our fault, BTW!)
As a child in the Baptist church, before I left for church every Sunday morning, my mom asked me three questions: Did you go to the bathroom? Do you have your Bible? Do you have your envelope, with the contribution from your allowance?
Maybe if we start asking our kids that, then the constant flow of people to the WC during Mass would stop, people would read the Good Book, and maybe a culture of stewardship would grow.
Just a thought . . .
A wealthy suburban parish paying only $75 a mass? That's insane. And he (or she?) is right: Anglicans, even tiny congregations, pay better. My Episcopalian employers pay me (almost) twice that for the work I do at a service that usually has less than 100 people at it. And then they pay an organist the same amount as me.
Umnnhhh, Jeffrey, the cheap-ness runs back as far as my memory goes, which is 50+ years.
In fairness, SOMETIMES the part-time RC gigs are decently compensated. But that's because the parishes are happy to pay part-timers 'fair' wages so they don't have to pay a FULL-timer the wage (plus benefits.)
Despite that, the Church rumbles on…
I recently applied and interviewed for a job in a very wealthy neighborhood just outside a major city. During the phone interview, I was informed that there was a diocesan policy restricting annual salary to no more than mid-$30k/year. That's less than I make now, and I currently live in one of the poorest counties in the US.
Not only that, but when I called this particular diocese's HR department, they informed me that there was no such policy. I withdrew my name from consideration. Sorry, I don't care how good the program is. I have a wife and kids to feed.
The problem – cheap music merits only cheap compensation. If we want to change the prospects for qualified musicians we have to change the attitudes and assumptions behind the misery imposed on the Church. Quite frankly, corrupt tastes have driven down the need for investment in sublime music and the musicians who are capable of producing it. People are content with muzak because for too long people with no real musical formation have projected their dumbed down tastes on to the Church.
The same intellectual trend or bias which infects the Church with shoddy theology has infected our tastes in music.
It must be said again and again, as long as we tolerate saccharine works by hack composers who are feeding us what they or some liturgists think we need, then amateur musicians (God bless them for doing their best!) will continue to work for nothing, thus putting out of work qualified musicians. One would think that for all the talk of social justice in the Church that more parishes would start practicing what they preach in their own homes.
If parishes really value music and musicians, then they should stop trying to lobby us with guilt trips ("You should offer your gifts freely to the parish… blah blah blah… .") and instead stick a crowbar in their wallets and pay musicians a just wage.
RE: Cheap Catholics
My Dad, a mailman, in the 50s supported his family with five kids and managed to give about $1.00 a week each year. I know that because in those days, the parish published and distributed an annual list of all of the members and their contributions.
When you look in the collection baskets in Catholic churches these days, there are a lot of dollar bills there.
Look, we all know what philsophical stance this blog and many others rests upon.
But, I absolutely maintain that a dedicated musician, who is equally a dedicated Roman Catholic, must be prepared to demonstrate an informed acceptance that incorporates the highest ideals whenever applicable, and demands excellence from his/herself as well as from subordinates as regards the necessities and vagaries of lesser heirarchical options (that remain licit, agree or not)as they are presented in real time.
Short story: one's versatility and flexibility are POLITICAL NECESSITIES in most cases.What is so difficult about accepting that bringing more skill sets to an interview increases your value to the beleaguered pastor who needs a sure hand and a clear thinker not encumbered by an immutable adherence to ideology? Keep the ideology, but not at the expense of a gig that might just prove worth it.
Rail on, all ye "True Believers" and "Puritans" who would decry this reality as a sell out. Not all of us had the moxie of William Mahrt to reply to his then pastor,"We'll sing vernacular music at Mass when worthy vernacular music appears" and get away with that for four decades. Not all of us has the providence of our dearest friend, MA, Singing Mum, to find a parish and pastor that wanted their formerly woeful, declining parish to thrive under the majesty of the EF as the nexus. Not all of us can expect that turning around a static situation like St. John Cantius into a thriving, vibrant liturgical Mecca for pilgrims will move us up the salary scale.
Most of us have to prove, daily, that we are an asset that a parish can NOT afford to lose, for whatever myriad combination of reasons.
And stay there, build the rep, and hopefully, use ingenuity to maintain economic viability that provides stability so that the repute of the director will either be obvious to the current employer signing the checks, or to other prospective employers, who already know of your name and your reputation.
This can and is and will be done in parishes across this country, at living wages.
Your honor, the prosecution rests.
Charles, the difficulty is that everything you have said is correct. However, none of it means a thing if the priest can be rid of you in a moment for any reason or no reason at all.
This is the way it has always been and will always be. This is why music in the Catholic church for the last 50 years – and hundreds of years before this – will always inferior except in a few parishes sprinkled across the globe.
A priest can make it possible, a priest can kill it.
At the present time the majority of priests who are in favor of liturgical reform are not yet serving as pastors or are sent to poor parishes who will not have the clout to force the bishop to remove the priest.
We are preaching to the choir when our emphasis is reforming the music in the parishes, instead we need to be in the seminaries.
Whenever I sub as an organist at a non-Catholic church, I am always paid more than what I get at a Catholic church. The quality of music is almost always better, as well as the choir and solo singers. Why is this? I think it is because the music at a non-Catholic church is considered an important part of the liturgical service, whereas in a Catholic church, it is considered optional. The American Guild of Organists publishes a suggested pay scale to help organists to know how much they should be getting per service or Mass, according to their degrees, AGO certificates and experience. These guidelines have always been ignored in my experience at the parishes where I have served. I have been asked by parishioners, "Do you get paid for this?" As long as the attitude that good music is optional at a Catholic Mass, musicians will continue to be underpaid. And churches will continue to use the "lady down the street who gives piana" (quote THE MUSIC MAN) or the young man who can only read chord symbols from the contemporary lead sheets. Conga drums, saxophone and other motley instruments will continue to be volunteered. Arggh! It's a real problem!
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Sorry, grammatical errors above. We need an "edit post" button here.
Noel, I too well know the deficiencies that attend our autocratic system in theory, and yes, often in practice.
But you seem to have missed my contention: DM's who concentrate upon improving the qualities of their choirs/cantors/instrumentalists AND thusly serve to elevate the quality of parishioners' appreciation and participation in worship can and do survive changes in the political winds brought on by clergy changes. How else do you explain why Dr. Mahrt, Paul Salamunovich, and likely many others have served the same parish for decades?
I've had two long-lived assignments wherein my tenure was not called into question when there were pastoral reassignments.
One can get hung up on politics, or one can choose to positively work around politics, and do their jobs optimally as possible.
this is not just a monetary problem. lay employees in general are treated as inferiors. we are expected to live our lives to high moral and ethical standareds…often the same as ordained clergy. this means no political opinions, no ranting on facebook, no opportunity to to say "ive never inhailed…constantly on guard at restaurants (lest a "contrary" opinion get back to the pastor) but when a priest falls, hes sent to treatment, if a lay employee falls, hes fired and blacklisted thus ruining his career.
ive seen this happen on numerious occasions.
lay employees are too often pawns in the greator political struggle.
It's laughable that the bishops have the nerve through the USCCB to excoriate American business on wages and benefits. They need to look in the mirror and then see if they can preach about "social justice" to others with a straight face.
For 20 years, I worked as organist at my parish, and was paid the "princely" sum of $100/month (CDN). When I retired, I didn't even get a card. Not only is my parish cheap, the choir directors have no class — and the pastor said "I don't poke my nose into the choir's business; I don't ask questions". And that is why the music in my wealthy suburban parish is total c***p. At a recent funeral attended by an acquaintance, the recessional music was James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend". At the Saturday Vigil Mass, which my husband and I attend, the organist recently played "Climb Every Mountain" at Communion time. It is sometimes quite painful to go to Mass and have to listen to this dreck, but it's the only Catholic church in town. In the meantime, everyone gushes about how "wonderful" the music is. And it's as if I was never there … It won't change any time soon. My pastor also said(I heard him), "Whenever anything comes from Rome, we close our eyes."