Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-10-15
STIPENDS FOR MASSES.

SIIPENDS FOR MASSES.
 Local Clergyman Makes an Interest-
 ing Explanation.
 Editor Democrat:-
 In the following communication there is nothing that is intended to border on personality. A misunder- standing having arisen in regard to the offering of stipends for masses, I deem it but just to the church I represent to present the subject from the stand point of the church. By so doing I am also acceding to several requests made of me during the week, probably because for the last seven or eight Sundays, the mass, the vestments, che ceremonies, etc, have been the theme of my instructions.
 To understand why stpends are given we must go back to the earliest days of the church's history. Tn the first place. let me remark that it is no law, it is only custom. We read in church history and in the liturgicaI works of the early Christian era that at the offertory it was customary to make the offering of bread, wine, oil, etc, a portion of which went to the use of the church and the remainder for the sustenance of the clergy. In course of time, and for various req sons, the principal one of which Is the inconvenience of placing these numer- ous offerings on the altar, the custom fell into disuse and was superseded by the present custom of substituting money. It is but an aims given for the becoming maintenance of the priest, who can say with St Paul 1 q Cor. ix:1D: If we have sown unto your spiritual things is it great mat ter if we reap your carnal things? **s Know you not that they who work in the holy place eat the things that are of the holy place, and they who serve the altar partake with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that they who preach the gospel should l live by the gospel''
 Every we'll instructed Catholic knows, or ought to know, that the sac rifice of the mass can be neither bought nor sold, that 1t is spiritual gift infinitely above all earthly value. The so-called stipend is no stipulated pay or remuneration for the holy sac rifice and hence as far as any remun- | i makes no difference whether the offer l ing is ten cents or ten million dollars. l It does not change the nature of the
 mass, which always remains the obla- I tion of the body and blood of Christ. Hence those people who have been l talking so loudly during the week I bout the sale of masses are simply airing their own ignorance about a subject concerning which, venture to say, they have never spent ten min utes' reading.
 As to the participation in the fruits of the mass theologians teach that there is special fruit, the disposition l of which is at the option of the priest celebrating. It is for this that the st1- pend is offered, being, as have inti- l mated above, a vestige of the ancient custom of making an offering for the sustenance of the clergy And let me say here thatthe Catholic clergy depend upon those offerings for masses, bap- l tisms and marriages to greater de gree than is perhaps known. There is no general church law to regulate the amount of these offerings. To pre- vent the possibility of anything that savers of commercialism each diocese
 regulates the amount. And if. as it l has been said, masses are said in Italy
 for ten cents and in Canada for twenty I five cents, that; does not mean that
 there is cut-rate price in those coun-
 tries, since there is no generally estab- 1 Iished rate It must be remembered, l too, that the purchasing power of ten
 cents in Italy and twenty-five cents in
 parts of Canada is equivalent to a
 much larger sum in the United States, that therefore since the object of the l stipend Is for the maintenance of the l clergy it is not necessary that 1t l should be as large In some places as l in the United States, where the cost
 of living Is exceedingly high (and, if l may be allowed to quote the Demo l5crat,3. is becoming higher).
 Mir O'Neill will, I am sure, pardon I me if I now introduce him personally I into this communication. I have talked I with many during the week on this
 subject, so suddenly made public, and 1 I have not met one who caught the point which, in my opinion, MT O'Neill
 wanted to make, viz: That the bequest in the will under consideration is of such an indefinite character that it places responsibility on no one who I can be called to account for the proper disposition of the money bequeathed. or in other words, no one who can l vouch that the masses will be said. If I interpret MT O'NeilI wrongly, I
 write subject to his correction hope
 that these few explanations will cIar- fly the atmosphere a little and do
 away with the misconceptions that
 have been engendered in regard to stipends for masses. I might remark in closing that 1t would be both justice 2 and decency for most non-C Catholics to let the subject alone since for the l most Dart thesv know even less abOl1t i this than about Catholic teachings
 and practices generally.
 IT., M. CROWLEY.