Cole Sinanian
IN a video posted to her popular Youtube channel, 28-year-old Leonese nun Marta Gonzalez Cambronero explains that fixed salaries don’t exist for nuns performing religious duties.
Some teach or work elsewhere on their own time, but unless they have a separate job, they live off donations.
“A nun, if she doesn’t have a salary like that, from outside, she has a fixed salary only when she retires,” Sister Marta says.
She goes on to explain that priests and bishops earn a salary for managing church activities.
According to data published in December 2023 by the Archdiocese of Seville and gathered by Infobae, priests earn 900 euros per month, while bishops earn 1,258, money collected through tax donations to the Church and distributed through a common fund.
Nuns, however, are registered as freelancers, or autonomas, Sister Marta explains.
Her church, Monasterio de la Santa Cruz de las Madres Benedictinas in the Leonese town of Sahagún, receives income through selling sweets, cosmetics, and tours of the monastery’s museum.
But unless the nuns earn money through personal pursuits outside of the church, they receive no further income.
“We nuns are autonomous and we don’t receive any salary from anywhere, not the state, nor the church nor bishops nor any other place.”
According to data from Statista, there were some 8,739 nuns and monks in Spain in 2020, and some 16,000 priests.
Many clergy members swear vows of poverty and commit to never amassing personal wealth or acquiring property of any kind.
Sister Marta, whose family is from Ciudad Real, spent nine years preparing to become a nun before taking her vows and formally committing her life to God last year.
She’s grown a following for her social media content, which she uses to demystify a life sworn to God, discussing with a frank and open attitude topics like sexuality and virginity, and questions like “What’s my place in the world?” for her 40,000 TikTok followers and 21,000 youtube subscribers.
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