“Paying priests properly”

Bomi Hansotia’s letter "Paying priests properly” (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, June 21, 2015) has hit the nail on the head. Many of our priests struggle to keep the wolf from the door even at the age of over 60 years. It has to be seen how many navars churned out by the two madressas in Bombay take to full-time mobedi. They can’t and won’t… because of the very poor pay and perks. It is a chicken and egg syndrome and will attract the low end of the athornan class to priesthood as their ranking in the minds of the laity is pretty low. Few look up to priests for solace and guidance. Even high priests have been known to speak ambiguously, further compounding the problem.
Do we realize that once the priests are gone, the religion itself will vanish? We still have some time left to salvage the situation if we pay heed to their woes. The calling should be made financially attractive. Prosperous businessmen, professionals and industrialists could set aside one to two percent of their profits to ameliorate the priests’ lot financially. A substantial corpus could be created with the help of such benefactors, bypassing the Bombay Parsi Punchayet altogether. Overseas Parsis could be enthused to help augment the proposed corpus. The atash behrams and agiaries could provide housing and medical expenses, as the priests advance in age.
Only such measures will attract a higher caliber of priests and ensure the perpetuation of the religion. The flame’s flicker is getting fainter and we do not have endless time on our side to save our hoary religion from extinction. B. T. DASTUR