Urgent Fundraising Needed

Published by The National Herald, October 14, 2005

Urgent fundraising needed

That eight retired priests and five widowed presvyteres live below the poverty line, and that one widowed presvytera is living on cat food, puts us all to shame and should make us reexamine our priorities and organizational structures.

How can people be allowed to starve in today’s America? And how can a community the size of ours, with the level of success it has attained, fail to put bread on the table of people who have faithfully served it, and who depend upon us, during their retirement years?

We call upon the Archdiocese to undertake the soonest possible fundraising effort to support these 13 people (for all we know, there may be many more out there in the same situation). We pledge to contribute the first $1,000 to this effort.

Our priests today are paid better than ever, and in some instances, their level of pay approaches the scandalous, even in parishes which can hardly afford those kinds of salaries and benefits.

It is obvious that some of these priests view their priesthood as a profession, not as a calling and ministry, and that this situation ought to concern all of us, as to what that means for the future of the Church and our community.

No one would wish anything else but for our hierarchy, priests and their families to live with dignity. No sensible person wants them to live in poverty, but neither should we be compelled to provide salaries which allow them to live in extravagance. If luxury is what they wanted, they should not have become men of the cloth.

But to allow retired priests and their wives (widowed or otherwise) to live below the poverty line? This is completely unacceptable, regardless of the technical distinction between pension and clergy benevolence programs at the Archdiocese.

We also call upon the National Philoptochos Society, the good women of the Church, to be even more philanthropic than usual, and to play an even more active role in alleviating the suffering of the poor, battered women, drug addicts, the sick and afflicted. Is that not what a family would do for its members? Is that not what the teaching of Christ is all about?



Volume 7 Number 42 - Tuesday, October 18, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY