Salary
Average Salary: $43,950
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $1,834,825
Well, well, well. You clicked on salary. For a charitable and pious person, you sure seem interested in how much money you're getting.
We're going to give it to you straight: Your salary may be enough to be able to get your robes dry-cleaned, but it's not a whole lot. The median salary is about $43,000 a year. But you also have to take into account the huge gap between a normal priest and the Burning-Man equivalent of a priest. On one end of the spectrum you have traditional Catholic priests. You literally take a vow of poverty to be a Catholic priest. You go into it accepting that you'll have no money. And the little money they do give you, you're actually expected to donate.
On the other hand, you have the priests who make $150,000 a year at the megachurches...and up to $400,000 a year if they can get some monkeys to be altar boys.
$43,000 may seem small compared to the $400,000 the big guys make...but don't forget: All of your housing, health care, transportation, and travel is covered. They even throw in a free funeral and burial.