old fashioned fund-raising

[winoblue1]

I recently remembered something that my mother told me about years ago.

She told me that in the old days - " the 1950's" at her small country parish church, each family had to pay for their pew. She complained that because they were very poor and had 14 children in the family they could only afford the second to last pew in the back of the church.

I remember at the time I had no clue what she was talking about, but this memory came back to me recently and I was wondering if anyone on this blog can help shed some light on this rather odd fundraising tactic.

What exactly was the practice, and is it still used these days?

Thanks for any feedback....

[HMiS]

A sad chapter of parish history in the western Church.

In the 1940s the parish priest at our church would remove Our Lord from the tabernacle to the silent sacristy, as family fathers would sometimes literally fight and quarrel over the front pews.

A disgrace. Fortunately it did not happen in the Eastern Catholic Churches. They don't have pews. Neither did it happen in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Belgium, as the churches there have prayer seats, not pews (which are a Northwest European innovation from the early 16th century, in imitation of royal chapels which had them).

[mattc]

I'm OK with pews as they are now (with padded kneelers, thank you) but my grandmother remembered that families had to or could buy their pews when she was a child.  The better ones apparently had padded kneelers.  She was just a child (1920's/1930's) so it's not clear from her description exactly how it worked, and she stopped attending Mass as a young adult.  This was in an Italian community in Northern California (Napa).  I'm not sure how representative that is of U.S. parishes.
 

[Tradglad]

I think if you look at many U.S churches from the 1700s and forward. It was a custom in many protestant churches that pews were purchased or held by famillies. I just saw an article on the church President Bush attends in Washington about twice a month. Its called Madison's Box where he sits. I would bet in old churches you can still see family names on the pews.

[paullong]

I think if you look at many U.S churches from the 1700s and forward. It was a custom in many protestant churches that pews were purchased or held by famillies. I just saw an article on the church President Bush attends in Washington about twice a month. Its called Madison's Box where he sits. I would bet in old churches you can still see family names on the pews.

mmm hmmm..... I did think it was a more protestant then Catholic thing

[winoblue1]

Thanks for the responses, however, I am still unclear on the rationale or point of it all. Clearly it is to raise money, but how did it work?

Were families supposed to pay for the construction of the pew, or was it like a yearly rental fee? Seems like a very bad idea if you ask me, because it makes it seem like the rich get a better seat than the poor, and like a theatre atmosphere....

[Mornac]

I live in a large metropolitan archdiocese and as far as I know we never had anything like that here, however I do remember stories about people paying a “seating fee” in the vestibule of the church as they entered for Mass on Sundays. I believe it was about five or ten cents and the practice died out in the years following WWII. This was probably the same type of fund-raising scam only altered to fit city parishes where there were up to eight Masses on Sundays and no one could reasonably claim a pew for themselves.

 

A few years ago when the pews in our church were in need of repair, our pastor asked for donations for the project. In return, those who made a certain sized contribution would have a small dedication plaque attached to one of the pews. Our priest had to make it clear from the pulpit that those pews were not being “bought” by anyone and that all pews in the church were for everyone’s use.