Sorry for the length - this has been on my mind lately, as someone who teaches and mentors young church musicians. I just sent another student to get an MSM at Notre Dame this month. What is the future here?
First, there is a lot of doom and gloom in this thread (Lars - while I feel for you, your situation is an extreme outlier and not representative of the field of church music in any way. Yes, I also used to live in Europe and play for 20 euros a mass. But in the USA where this organization is based, that is not remotely the case). Playing for free should not even really be discussed on a professional forum like this. While I truly respect the intention and sacrifice, by definition that is for volunteers, not professionals. Even my subs and students who have not learned pedal yet make healthy Mass stipends at my cathedral and all around town. If you choose to play for nothing, that is your decision, not the church's (IOW don't blame the church or the field of church music because you choose to play for free on the side of your real job).

But to the OP's point, even though I am blessed to have a job that does support my family (my wife stays home), I would say that it is extremely difficult to do so. I have a doctorate, run a cathedral music program, teach at a university on the side, etc., etc. I am only aware of a bare handful of cathedral music directors in the USA who even have families of children at home, much less support them as the sole income.

As many have pointed out (and as I live out), you can pack around the edges with gigs, lessons, concerts, etc. But the problem is that hours of the day are finite. You'll have to cut into family time, severely, to support your family - the classic catch-22. I work 7 days a week while the university is in session. However you cut it, it's not easy. A better path may be to pursue large suburban jobs, where weddings and funerals are constant, tons of families want piano and voice lessons for their kids, and cost of living may be more reasonable.

Still, I would not advise a young man or woman who hopes to be the sole breadwinner to consider this field. It really does not make sense. In four more years as a church musician you will be lucky to keep up with inflation (even in normal times - forget it right now). However, if you invest those four years in ANYTHING professional and sensible (that is - anything with a clear employment prospect at the end, such as a 4-year degree in engineering, MBA, nursing school, tech school, etc., etc.) you will have a path upward in life. As a SECONDARY income (e.g. half time or Wednesday night/Sunday Morning, odd office hours) the pay for church music can really be quite good relative to the time commitment. But there is a definite ceiling (I would say 70-80k) in terms of what you can get full time, even in the best jobs. There is a tiny percentage (maybe 5%) of jobs that reach up to 90k/low 6 figures, but most of us aren't getting those any time soon! And those are often in big cities where cost of living is astronomical. In looking at the numbers of one such job, I realized it would be simultaneously a 50% raise for me AND a 50% pay cut in terms of cost of living!

If you must pursue church music as your career and to support your Catholic, open-to-life, spouse-at-home family, I'd advise earning at least a Master's in organ/choral conducting/church music, as cheaply as possible, and then you must search the national job market and be willing to move to any job you can find that pays a livable wage. They really are out there, but they are not going to be the entry level ones that you find locally without having to move. If you search the AGO job listings you are more likely to find professional full-time work. Look for smaller cathedrals when starting out, or large, wealthy suburban parishes. It's never going to be easy, but I would say either work and search to get into the 60-80k bracket, or find another line of work. Again, that's if you are the breadwinner.

From the other side, if there are any priests or parish council members reading this, there really needs to be some homework on your part. [If, that is, you value hiring a stable, professional, Catholic family person]. Before hiring, sit down with a couple of people (maybe a realtor from the parish and a business person) and map out the cost of a decent small home in the area, health insurance, utilities, state income tax, etc., and discover what a lay person's budget looks like. Start there, rather than from some arbitrary and meaningless diocesan budget standard or your memories of what you earned 25 years ago before you entered seminary. What often frustrates me is the apathy about truly examining and discussing the situation, and finding creative solutions. Instead, too many of these salary discussions are arbitrary and emotional ("I feel like a church musician shouldn't earn more than..."). But I digress.

42k salary. (Blessed.) Husband and father of 1. (Very blessed!) Take with a grain of salt.

This isn’t a very exciting prospect, but there are some changes, ranging from small to substantial, that can at least make things easier, especially when taken together. Forgive and ignore if you’re already doing this stuff.

• Put a cap on eating out and related things. Make it very occasional.
• If you’re the only one working and your wife and children stay at home, maybe only vehicle is the solution. If the fam needs it, they can drop you off and pick you up from work.
• Do your clothes shopping and such at second hand/good will/garage sales.
• Couponing, and going for deals and sales on groceries and toiletries. (Buying in bulk too.)
• live very intentionally — give yourself shorter, stricter shower times, vigilantly shut off lights, heaters, ACs when you’re not using them.

We do some of these, and we are saving money. It might not be as much as we like, but we are definitely not living paycheck to paycheck. That said, looking for other work, like others have said, is another (or additional) course of action. (I am looking into this right now myself. Looking to start giving music lessons, gig around on my guitar, and even mundane things like donate plasma. I still have connections with my former employers who might take me on part time.) But embracing a simpler, more “impoverished” life really doesn’t have to be that bad. Some of the happiest, “spiritually rich” families I’ve ever met come don’t have a lot by way of money and possessions.

Wishing you peace. May God bless you and provide all you and your family require.

even mundane things like donate plasma

Lemme pass this along to the AGO’s outreach/young-organist committees. What a brilliant encapsulation of the stagnant pay and dim prospects of this field….Become an organist! it pays enough that you can get by, if you also sell your blood.

And the blood of our children, lol.

Good thing Jesus paid the tab in full; I don’t have that kind of currency.

I have a music degree specifically in 'liturgical music' from a local Catholic College. I have 15 years experience. I am not even breaking 38K base rate. It's demoralizing.

I am also a single mom with three kids. I have to maintain a bustling piano studio to makes ends meet, and even then it's not enough some times. This means I work 4 days of office hours, 2 evenings evening teaching piano and running choirs, and also play masses on weekends. I am running on fumes most days; all I want are two days in a row off to breathe. Or heck, evening my evenings free.

I finally started to dream what it would look like to not live paycheck to paycheck. It's crazy to think what a lifestyle change a 45-50k per year job plus weekends off would give me. The more I think about it, the more I want that. I'm just so tired of living on just enough when secular opportunities would give more peace of mind. The scary part is giving up flexibility when the kids need a doctor appointment or stay home sick from school.

I've thoroughly purged a lot of the "greatest hits" from our parish (getting rid of the hymnals helped immensely, although I had stopped scheduling them 4 years ago) but every once-in-a-while my hand is forced for a funeral. I feel dirty afterward, every time.

Chris, I think that if I had not had a well-paying job with the government, the low wages and such would have seriously bothered me. As it was, I was able to laugh a lot of it off. now that I am retired, I hope the people who follow me are in good shape. Thankfully, it isn't my problem any more.

These posts are heart-breaking.
Young people, thinking about majoring in music, heed these posts.
It's relatively do-able when you're in your twenties to play a lot of gigs, live cheap, teach as much as possible, etc.
Somehow when you hit your thirties it's a lot less appealing, and it's more difficult the more children you have, or if there are medical issues that require high-cost prescriptions and treatments, etc.
I have three kids and I have told them many times, "Whatever you do, don't major in music, unless you're independently wealthy!" which they're not. I have a bachelor's and a master's in viola performance from a brand-name conservatory. I had lots of student loan debt when I was done. After I finished my master's, I realized what a terrible way this is to make a living. At that point I went off to library school, where I was able to get enough job skills that I could get a teacher-level salary that I have maintained for about 30 years.
I partly blame schools of music for churning out graduates who are extremely competent, but there's simply not enough work for these young people, and for the jobs that do exist usually the pay is awful. I understand that the music profs need to maintain a studio of students so that they can make a living, but this just perpetuates the problem.

@John_F_Church I commend you for making it work, and I hope God will provide even more abundantly for you and your family!

Way back when I was an undergraduate, my loves and talents were in music, mathematics, and science. My parents pushed for me to pursue medicine and, when I demurred, physics or chemistry. But by then I was excelling in mathematics and could see that music did not offer much in the way of possibilities unless one was extremely lucky, despite the talent. So I took a B.A. in mathematics and went to graduate school, earning a Ph.D. and, following two years of postdoctoral research support, went into academia. All the while, where possible, I maintained my interest and involvement in music (oboe/English horn performance and some teaching, singing as a chorister and soloist, choir conducting, organist, and composing intermittently as much as possible), rarely, if at all, being paid as a musician.

When I finally retired (early) from university teaching and research some twenty years ago, I began to pursue musical activities more intensely, singing of course, but mainly in the form of editing early choral music and composing/arranging, which led to my involvement in CPDL as an administrator and for 10 years as president (all volunteer, unpaid). Except for a very few years as (unpaid) choir director and organist for the "traditional" choir at St. Thomas Aquinas in Charlottesville and a couple of years as the director of an ad hoc/occasional choir at St. Paul's Episcopal in Hudson, I've never had the choral composer's luxury of having my own choral group/choir to write music for and have it performed.

Thus it is, that much of my choral output has been either unperformed or only performed in unusual places/circumstances (mainly in Europe) -- and live recordings of performances are few and far between -- which has been the most disheartening aspect of my deep love for and efforts to compose worthwhile sacred choral music, as well as my own perceived smaller compositional output. My professional life as a mathematician sustained me until retirement where music could not, but at least I've had a some musically rewarding (albeit not financially rewarding) experiences.

I think another factor is job availability. My former boss, the chief engineer and manager at a government agency where I worked, once said that there were many people who could do his job. Unfortunately, there was only one position and it was filled. Yes, cathedrals pay more than parish churches - usually. But how many cathedrals are there and how many musicians are the schools churning out? Too many for the available positions. It is not unusual for a significant music position to be held by someone like Widor for 60 years before it becomes available again. Granted, that's a long time but the turnover rate for the good jobs isn't frequent.

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That seems a bit glib, if I’m honest, Francis. Even the Apostles could expect to be fed when they did their ministry. It wasn’t without its hardships—sure—but the expectation, from the very beginning, was that communities of Christians supported each other (and especially their ministers). That doesn’t seem too much to ask, where formal, corporate worship is concerned.

So parish music directors are supposed to work another job AND do music at the parish EVERY weekend and EVERY holiday? Even if you could support a family that way, you wouldn't get to spend any time with them. Being a parish music director is already straining enough on a family because you work when everyone else has off, and you work on all the most important family celebration holidays except for the 4th of July. You even have to do the evening Mass on Superbowl Sunday when there are only a dozen people in the pews.

It's difficult to see how pastor is a full-time role, from what I've seen in many parishes.

The hardships of being a parish music director merit consideration in compensation, even if the hours aren't 40 per week most weeks.

Ideally, there would be more than just an organist/director. There should also be 2-4 paid section leaders to ensure you can perform higher quality music and to help aid the learning of less experienced singers.

Maybe I'm odd man out, but I appreciate working weekends and holidays for multiple reasons.

1. It doesn't limit my time with my wife and children. I can just as easily spend a Monday with them as a Saturday and it's the same to me.

2. Parties and the like interest me little, if at all. Working weekends gives me an easy out for avoiding all the invitations that I would want to say "no" to anyway.

3. Family outings are much more fun on a week day than on the weekend. Going to the zoo on a Saturday is a nightmare and going in the afternoon doesn't leave enough time to do anything. Going on a Monday morning during a typical school day (we homeschool -- extra perks!) is fun and relaxing because the place is virtually empty.

As far as missing Superbowl Sunday? Why would I want to experience hell on earth anyway?!

You can do what you like, but bosses (pastors and otherwise) take advantage of that, and they don't seem to be understanding when the next guy wants distance.

Regarding section leaders: I'm firmly in the camp that there should be male singers paid to cantor, i.e. lead the propers and sing the psalm verses as well as the melismatic verses at Mass and to intone (or pre-intone, or both) the antiphons, to intone the psalms (and the verse, probably), and to continue the hymn (and sing everything in alternation) at Vespers… look, I get it, the proliferation of evening Masses and a general disinterest in chant and in proper worship makes this seem ridiculous, but that is the ideal, at the very least.

The church in this country has been running a scam on musicians for at least 50 years that I know of. Many priests don't know the difference between Hassler and Haas and have no interest in learning. With the decline in music instruction in the schools, the congregations are no better. The secular culture has invaded the church and, even worse, taken it over. I have said for years that much of it comes down to leadership - or lack of it.

I'm not certain they always know the difference between Haugen and Haas. (Haugen-Haas, the newest ice cream venture…)

Many priests don't know the difference between Hassler and Haas

I was once told by a Pastoral Associate "Bach was a good Catholic"

"Bach was a good Catholic"

By modern standards, he was!

One might even go so far as to say: "More Catholic than the Pope." (It's just too bad that he and Mrs Bach (I & II) bred "like rabbits".)

Johann Christian Bach notably became Catholic in his twenties, and was highly regarded by a young Mozart, among others.

My only day off is Thursdays (after I’m there until 9:30pm for rehearsals the night before) and we had about 7 funerals in a row that were all scheduled for Thursdays with no input from me. They just scheduled them and expected me to be there. It became a running “joke”. So I feel your pain.

So sorry to hear this. You’d think, as a diocesan employee, that you’d be able to send your children gratis…

At this point, it is my belief that dioceses exist solely for the purpose of collecting money, and making life more difficult for everyone in the process.

The parish I work for does not have a school and is not related to the school my children attend. To be fair, the school has taken tremendous care of my family and I after the divorce. It was a mutual choice of my ex husband and I to enroll them in catholic schools long before any separation. His well-off family even paid the tuition for us. Since our divorce, both have refused to pay any tuition (legally they can do that) and it is on me to pay for the tuition and uniforms if I am to keep them there. The school provides scholarships for us and I am in awe that I am asked to play just enough funerals and weddings that provide the rest of the tuition. It's usually within $50-$100 of what I need. I could not plan that if I tried. God is good. The school is good with aid; the diocese not so much.