The average annual parish giving per member in the US Catholic church was $497 in 2013 (latest figures I could find). The 2013 figure for TEC was $2556. Even if the figures were calculated somewhat differently and aren't completely comparable it is evident that Catholics are not in the same ballpark as Episcopalians when it comes to financial support of their church.By "average", I assume my correspondent means "arithmetic mean". The TEC sample size is much smaller than the Catholic and is probably skewed by the small number of high-end donors. I'm not sure if it says much of anything about the OCSP, whose own numbers are going to be skewed by the half a dozen self-sustaining parishes against the two dozen groups and missions -- but even there, the law of small numbers is going to apply. My correspondent continues,
Catholic priests are very poorly compensated relative to the clergy of other denominations and retirement support is often a matter of charity rather than a funded benefit, so they are in effect subsidising their parishes/dioceses, just as in the past women religious subsidised the operation of Catholic schools and hospitals. It's a mindset.I would characterize it as something other than a mindset -- vocation is involved. Bp Barron has noted that the women religious whom feminists decry as providing cheap labor have taken vows of poverty and are undertaking those lives via free and informed choice. The same applies to Catholic priests, who again are fully aware of the conditions under which they will work. Episcopal priests, in contrast, are typically seeking socially prestigious positions that will in many cases fund a prosperous family life.
The funding of so many aspects of diocesan and national church life through second collections rather than an effective system of allotment of parish funds to the diocese is inferior to the model used in TEC and the ACC, in my estimation. One feels sorry for the intended beneficiaries of a second collection scheduled for January. Presumably the idea is that donors can pick and choose their priorities but I think this is actually a rather Protestant approach.The bottom line for me is that it strikes me as doubtful that parish pledges or special collections can fund projects like a clergy pension fund. In fact, the Episcopal retirement fund in the US was only begun about 1920 in a campaign led by J.P.Morgan Jr. If Bp Lopes can find equivalent donors, more power to him, but that's what will be needed. However, while responsible diocesan laity should be considering the Church in their estate planning, it seems to me that overall priorities for the Church must go beyond a boutique issue like the OCSP.
UPDATE: The more I think about the TEC annual giving average of $2556, the less credible it seems to me. This amounts to an average weekly pledge of $49.15, with 50% of pledges being greater. 30 years ago I served as an assistant treasurer at All Saints Episcopal Beverly Hills, with access to weekly pledge amounts. Beverly Hills is a prosperous community, and this is a prosperous and prestigious parish. Even allowing for inflation, I can say that I never saw weekly pledges coming anywhere close to $50, and certainly never a situation with half of the pledge checks coming in for more.
