Which Offerings a Priest Keeps

What Canon Law Says §

On a Tuesday, Father Smith says the 7:00 AM Mass for a widow’s late husband and the 12:10 PM Mass for a man who is recovering from surgery, at his daughter’s request. The widow gave $10 and the daughter $20. Both Masses are offered for the intention asked, and Father Smith keeps one of the two offerings:

§1. Sacerdos plures eadem die Missas celebrans, singulas applicare potest ad intentionem pro qua stips oblata est, ea tamen lege ut, praeterquam in die Nativitatis Domini, stipem pro una tantum Missa faciat suam, ceteras vero in fines ab Ordinario praescriptos concredat, admissa quidem aliqua retributione ex titulo extrinseco.

§2. Sacerdos alteram Missam eadem die concelebrans, nullo titulo pro ea stipem recipere potest.

§1. A priest celebrating several Masses on the same day may apply each to the intention for which an offering was given, on the condition that, except on Christmas Day, he keeps the offering for one Mass only and hands the rest over to the purposes laid down by the Ordinary, though some recompense on an outside title is allowed.

§2. A priest concelebrating a second Mass on the same day may not receive an offering for it on any title whatever.

Canon 951. Latin · The Holy See’s English · Our translation.

The first paragraph limits what he keeps, not what he may accept. Jefferson City’s faculties for its priests put it plainly: “Unlike the 1917 Code, the present law allows a priest to accept offerings for any number of Masses which he celebrates on one (1) day, as long as he does not personally retain more than one (1) offering.”¹ So each of his Masses can carry its own intention and its own offering, and the office sorts out the offerings afterward.

Two or Three Masses in a Day §

Chanceries call two Masses in a day bination and three trination, as Buffalo’s audit office defines them.² A priest normally celebrates once a day. Where priests are few, the local Ordinary may let him celebrate twice a day for a just cause, and three times on Sundays and holy days of obligation when pastoral need requires it (canon 905). A diocese may grant this to every priest in his faculties: Jefferson City’s allow two Masses on a weekday “for a just cause,” and three on Sundays and holy days “if pastoral necessity requires.”¹ The Missal’s instructions add a few days on which any priest may say more than one Mass, among them Christmas and All Souls Day, three Masses each (GIRM 204).

In law a day runs from midnight to midnight (canon 202 §1), and the limit of one offering counts every church he says Mass in that day. Rockford’s vicar for clergy reminded priests in 2016 that one who “says Mass at a parish and then goes to another parish” should not accept one of the day’s offerings.³

Dioceses read the Saturday evening Mass differently. Rockford counts it as Saturday’s, so a priest who says a Saturday morning Mass and the vigil “must decline one of the Saturday stipends.”⁴ St. Petersburg’s guidance, from a 2010 memo, gives him “latitude” to count the vigil toward Sunday and keep both.⁵ Both let a priest who says only the vigil on Saturday keep its offering and one more on Sunday. Ask which reading your diocese follows.

Which Offering Does He Keep? §

Canon 951 says he keeps “the offering for one Mass only” and stops there. It doesn’t choose between the widow’s $10 at 7:00 and the daughter’s $20 at noon. Fr. John Chrysostom Kozlowski, OP, a doctor of canon law, answers that he may keep “either of the two.”⁶ Dioceses that write a rule for their offices choose for them:

• Rockford: “If a priest offers more than one Mass on a particular day, pay the largest stipend for the intentions offered.”⁴
• Alexandria: a priest supplying at several Masses that carry offerings “receives the stipend for the first Mass.”⁷

Cincinnati sends “the second stipend (bination stipend)” to the chancery, and Buffalo sends “the second (and subsequent) offerings” to the bishop’s charities, but neither says whether “second” means the later Mass’s offering or simply any beyond the one he keeps.^{8 2}

Under Rockford’s rule the office pays Father Smith the $20 from noon and sends on the $10. Under a first-Mass rule it pays him the $10 and sends on the $20. Either way both Masses are said, and one offering goes on.

Some priests keep none at all. Fr. Kozlowski notes that in some dioceses, before ordination, a man “waives the right to retain Mass offerings received through the parish in view of receiving a higher salary,”⁶ and Cincinnati lets its priests waive them “in favor of a specified regular monthly payment.”⁸ Then the same question decides which offering stays with the parish. Ask your chancery which rule it follows, write it into the parish’s policy, and apply it the same way every month.

Where the Other Offerings Go §

They go to “the purposes laid down by the Ordinary” (canon 951 §1). In 1987 the Holy See settled which Ordinary that means:

D. Utrum Ordinarius de quo in can. 951, § 1 intelligendus sit Ordinarius loci in quo Missa celebratur, an Ordinarius proprius celebrantis.

R. Negative ad primam partem; affirmative ad secundam, nisi de parochis et vicariis paroecialibus, pro quibus Ordinarius intelligitur Ordinarius loci, agatur.

Q. Whether the Ordinary spoken of in canon 951 §1 is to be understood as the Ordinary of the place where the Mass is celebrated, or the celebrant’s own Ordinary.

A. No to the first part; yes to the second, unless it concerns pastors and parochial vicars, for whom the Ordinary is understood to be the local Ordinary.

Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law, on canon 951 §1, 1987. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 79 (1987) 1132. Latin · Our translation.

So your own pastor and parochial vicars follow your diocese’s rule. A priest visiting from another diocese follows his own diocese’s. For a priest of a clerical religious institute of pontifical right, his major superior is also his Ordinary (canon 134 §1), and whatever a religious acquires by his own work he acquires for his institute (canon 668 §3). Rockford has its parishes pay a visiting religious priest’s order for every Mass that carried an offering, with “a note explaining the number of ‘first Mass’ intentions as well as the excess funds included for binations and trinations.”⁴

For diocesan priests, here is what some dioceses have published:

In 2025 the Holy See repeated that a priest keeps one offering a day for one of the intentions he accepted, and added that a diocesan bishop may, by particular law, send these offerings to parishes in need, in his own diocese or another, especially in mission countries (decree, Art. 2 and Art. 3 §3).

The canon still allows “some recompense on an outside title”: pay for something other than the Mass itself. Fr. Kozlowski’s examples are the priest’s “time, travel expenses, preparation,” which he may keep “even when given for a second or third Mass.”⁶ St. Petersburg’s schedule for a visiting priest lists the two apart: “$50.00 plus stipend” for a weekday Mass.¹²

Christmas Day §

On Christmas Day every priest may celebrate three Masses, each at its own time of day (GIRM 204), and it’s the one day canon 951 lets him keep the offering of each (canon 951 §1). St. Petersburg puts it as “the stipends for up to three Masses.”⁵

Christmas Day is 25 December, counted from midnight. Rockford counts vigil Masses “for the day in which they begin,” a Mass that actually starts at midnight for the feast, and an earlier “Midnight Mass” as a vigil Mass on the day it begins.⁴ So, in Rockford’s reading, a priest who says the 4:00 PM vigil and a 10:00 PM Mass on 24 December keeps one offering for that day, and the offering of each Mass he says on the 25th (Christmas and the Mass book).

All Souls Day §

When requests for 2 November come in, know which of a priest’s Masses that day can take one. In 1915 Pope Benedict XV let every priest say three Masses that day, on one condition:

Liceat omnibus in Ecclesia universa Sacerdotibus, quo die agitur Sollemnis Commemoratio omnium fidelium defunctorum, ter sacrum facere; ea tamen lege, ut unam e tribus Missis cuicumque maluerint applicare et stipem percipere queant; teneantur vero, nulla stipe percepta, applicare alteram Missam in suffragium omnium fidelium defunctorum, tertiam ad mentem Summi Pontificis, quam satis superque declaravimus.

On the day of the Solemn Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, let all priests throughout the Church be permitted to celebrate Mass three times; on this condition, however, that they may apply one of the three Masses for whomever they wish and receive an offering for it, but are bound, receiving no offering, to apply the second Mass in suffrage for all the faithful departed, and the third for the intention of the Supreme Pontiff, which We have made abundantly plain.

Benedict XV, Incruentum Altaris, 10 August 1915, I. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 7 (1915) 403. Latin · Our translation.

So of a priest’s three Masses that day, one may be offered for a parishioner’s intention and carry its offering. The other two take no offering at all, so there is nothing to forward from them: one is applied for all the faithful departed, the other for the Pope’s intention. So give each priest one parishioner’s intention for 2 November, not three. Our suggestion is to write the other two in the book as applied for those intentions, with “None” where the offering goes.

The 1983 Code doesn’t mention All Souls. For some years after it, as Fr. Daniel C. Gill puts it on his canon law blog, it was “an open question” whether Benedict XV’s rule still applied.¹⁴ The third edition of the Missal’s instructions answered it: all priests may say three Masses that day, so long as they keep what was laid down for applying the second and third, and its note cites Benedict XV’s constitution (GIRM 204). In 2020 the Holy See earnestly asked every priest to say the three Masses according to it (Apostolic Penitentiary, decree of 22 October 2020). We found no source since that disputes it, and the diocesan notes we found tell priests to keep it: Fort Wayne-South Bend’s notes of 2024 say the stipulations “must still be adhered to,” and Philadelphia’s Office for Worship set out the same norms for its priests in 2010.^{15 16} If your diocese says otherwise, follow it.

The three Masses are allowed, not required, so ask each priest how many he will say. When 2 November falls on a Saturday, Fort Wayne-South Bend counts the evening’s Sunday vigil among the three, with “only one stipend” that day.¹⁵

The Mass for the People §

On every Sunday and holy day of obligation the pastor applies one Mass for his people (canon 534). The duty comes from the law, not from anyone’s offering, so the Mass carries none.⁶ Does it use up his one offering for the day? Rockford says no: he “can still offer another Mass on Sunday and keep the stipend for the second one since no stipend is offered for the Pro Populo Mass,” though he may not add a second intention to the Mass for the people.⁴ New York and St. Petersburg say the same.^{10 5}

Cincinnati’s manual says it both ways. Its procedures use Rockford’s words, while its list of guidelines says that on those days “the pastor may not receive a stipend for another Mass” and sends that offering to the chancery.⁸ Ask which reading yours follows (the Mass for the people).

Concelebrated Masses §

A concelebrant may accept an offering and apply the Mass for its intention: the canon names any priest “celebrating or concelebrating Mass” (canon 945 §1). Cincinnati’s policy for its priests says “There is no distinction” between the offering of the principal celebrant and a concelebrant’s.⁸ Rockford adds that his intention must differ from the main celebrant’s and that he must be told it before Mass begins.⁴

What he may not do is take an offering for a second Mass he concelebrates that day, “on any title whatever” (canon 951 §2): not to keep, not to send on, and not as recompense on an outside title, which Fr. Kozlowski says plainly.⁶ When the parochial vicar says the 8:00 AM Mass and then concelebrates a 10:00 AM funeral, the funeral carries no offering for him.

The canon says a second Mass. Several sources read it without regard to the order of the day. Rockford lets a concelebrant accept an offering only if “He has not celebrated or concelebrated another Mass on that day,” Jefferson City only if the concelebration “is the only Mass a priest celebrates that day,” and Fr. Kozlowski holds that the rule applies “even if the concelebration is not chronologically second.”^{4 1 6} The Holy See’s declaration on concelebration said as much in 1972: priests “who celebrate for the pastoral good of the faithful and concelebrate another Mass” may not receive an offering for the concelebrated Mass on any title (Declaratio de concelebratione, 7 August 1972, AAS 64, 563, our translation). Our suggestion, which satisfies every reading: give a concelebrant an intention with an offering only when it’s the only Mass he says that day.

The priest who presides at a concelebrated Mass is another question. Jefferson City treats him as a priest saying several Masses, under the first paragraph: he keeps one offering and sends on the rest.¹ If a case turns on it, ask your diocese.

The Common Cases §

Writing It Down §

The book records each Mass’s intention, offering and celebration, and an offering sent on doesn’t change that: the Mass was said (canon 958). Write the Mass as said, then where its offering went and when. Cincinnati sends a forwarded offering “with the notation that the obligation has already been fulfilled,” and St. Petersburg asks for “notations of the particular Mass intentions” with what the parish sends each year.^{8 12} That’s a different thing from sending a Mass away to be said by another priest, which canon 955 governs (each column of the book, and Masses sent elsewhere).

At the month’s end, go priest by priest and day by day. Rockford’s guide tells the office to “begin with the first day of the month and review each day of the month” before writing each priest’s check.⁴ Then send what goes on in the way your diocese asks, and keep the record with the book (closing the year).

How Memento Keeps This §

Memento’s ledger of offerings counts each priest’s Masses by the parish’s calendar day. It keeps the offering of his first Mass of the day that carries one: that’s a choice we made, not what the law requires, and a parish in a diocese that pays the largest, as Rockford does, should know it. It keeps up to three on Christmas Day, never counts the Mass for the people against his one, and lists the rest To Forward (canon 951, and what we do about it).