The Latin word stipendium came into Spanish as stipend . This is the name given to the payment given to an individual for a task they have performed or for a service they have provided. The stipend, therefore, is remuneration .
For example: “The law establishes that interns must receive a monthly stipend of no less than a quarter of the minimum wage ,” “The government granted me a one-year scholarship that included a stipend to cover my study expenses,” “The brand new “The deputy announced that he will donate the stipend to a civil association.”
Workers receive a stipend for their work. The way in which this payment is specified varies depending on the contracting regime. The most common stipend is the monthly salary : at the end of each month, the employer gives the employee the money corresponding to the work performed.
There are also hourly, daily , weekly and biweekly stipends. According to the periodicity, it is common to use terms such as daily or fortnight .
The stipend can be considered as money that is received or as a monetary disbursement that is carried out. When a worker gets paid, there is a company or other entity that delivers the money in question.
In the field of religion , a rate established by an ecclesiastical authority when the faithful want the priest to offer a mass for a certain intention is called a stipend. This means that the Church sets a stipend for those who want the priest to dedicate a mass to something or someone in particular.
In other words, the stipend is an offering that the faithful make without being required to do so, but rather to ensure that the beneficiaries (in this case, one or more priests) celebrate a mass with a well-defined objective. The mass does not have to be extraordinary, but it can and is usually one of the obligatory ones, which simply changes its intention to adapt to those agreed upon by giving the money.
Once a priest receives a stipend, he undertakes the obligation to celebrate the mass that the faithful have requested, and this can be dedicated to people who are going through a difficult time, whether due to illness or financial problems, or who have recently died, although the possible topics are many and varied.
For the Church , the stipend is a type of alms that is as necessary as it is legitimate, since it encourages the faithful to improve the quality of life of the ministers and promote new activities in the temples. So much so that in many churches there is no other source of income.
The regional meeting of bishops or the provincial council is responsible for determining by decree the appropriate amount for the stipend, and no priest can demand more money; However, he can receive it if the faithful offer it to him spontaneously. Similarly, you can also accept a lower offering than the stipulated one if you wish.
If there is no decree for this purpose, then the diocese will be in charge of regulating the delivery of stipends for the application of masses. Needless to say, in these cases it is very important to act in a crystal-clear manner, to avoid suspicions of illicit negotiations. If a priest receives money for personal purposes, unrelated to the objectives of the offering, he must serve a penalty appropriate to the degree of his offense.
When, for certain reasons, the priest chosen for the special Mass cannot celebrate it, he has the possibility of transmitting the order to another. Although these regulations regarding the stipend exist, the faithful in certain regions do not have sufficient financial means; In these cases, it is at the discretion of each diocese to make exceptions.