Pastors and Their Homes

Is there any serious thinking or discussion about the homes in which pastors and priests and bishops live? It is not just Roman Catholic bishops or archbishops who dwell in opulence. In fact, many Protestant pastors dwell in nothing less than luxury. Steven Furtick’s home was the attention of some media not long back, and Mark Driscoll’s salary has been probed, and that’s just a start.

How does your church determine the salary of pastors/priests? 

Pope Francis himself has definitely taken a pay grade in housing, and is showing a better way.

Daniel Burke has nothing less than an expose of the palaces and homes of America’s Roman Catholic Bishops — worth your read:

Clearly, “lifestyles of the rich and religious” doesn’t cut it for Pope Francis.

The pontiff has said it “breaks my heart” to see priests and nuns driving the latest-model cars.

He’s blasted “airport bishops” who spend more time jet-setting than tending to their flocks.

And he’s warned against church leaders who bear the “psychology of princes.”

The Vatican fired one such “prince” last year: German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst — aka “The Bishop of Bling” — who spent $43 million to remodel his opulent pad.

(Bronze window frames? $2.4 million. Getting on the wrong side of the Pope? Far more pricey.)

“God save us from a worldly Church with superficial spiritual and pastoral trappings!” Francis said in his book-length blueprint for the church.

Say what you will, but this Pope puts his preaching into practice.