Priests and cars...

One thing people have to remember is that for a Priest a car is a tool, part office, part transport, part hauler. In the course of a week a Priest may put a whole lot of road under their wheels and there are times when those wheels can't fail, say two o'clock in the morning for that emergency baptism in the neonatal intensive care unit.

So some Priests have some pretty nice cars. But there's a secret you should know. A lot of clergy need nice cars for work but can't afford them fresh off the lot. The secret? Buy a nice car a few years old and still get value without all that depreciation.

I knew a Lutheran pastor who really liked Volvos but could only afford them when they got in the neighborhood of 100,000 miles. Fortunately Volvo's routinely leave 100K in the rear view mirror and the people who own them aren't prone to taking them out boondocking. Same goes for Lincoln Town Cars, which a close Priest friend of mine enjoys (they're literally a traveling living room) but never buys new. Recently I met the former Priest of St. Elias Church and his wife while he was visiting family in the Twin Cities. They were in thier Audi station wagon purchased the same way. All it takes to turn an out of reach Mercedes into an affordable pastormobile is a few years.

So if you see your Priest, Pastor, or Minister scooting by in, say, a Cadillac it isn't because your paying them too much or they're on the take. Just like you learn in seminary to stretch noodles for a few meals it doesn't take long in parish life to figure out how to get a good car cheap and make it last.

You might even want to try it yourself sometime.