An incentive from the Archdiocese:

Priests, it turns out, are prone to bad habits, like everyone else. Some smoke; others eat too much.

So as old priests die off faster than new ones replace them, and health care costs climb, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York is taking steps to conserve its precious and not-quite-renewable resource: it is offering bonuses of $500 to priests who quit smoking or lose weight.

Such incentive programs are common in the corporate world, but New York’s is a Catholic first, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (Though the priesthood is sometimes thought to harbor its share of heavy drinkers, Sister Monica Walsh, who runs the archdiocese’s clergy-wellness program, said that alcohol abuse was "not, to my knowledge" widespread enough to warrant a similar incentive plan.)

The bonuses will come from the proceeds from this year’s Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser.

The foundation’s mission is to aid "the poor, sick, and underprivileged" of the archdiocese. Its beneficiaries include hospitals and homes for pregnant women. But priests, whose maximum salary is $18,000 a year, need help, too, Sister Walsh said.

"Some of the priests might be interested in going to a gym, but the financial end of it might be a deterrent," she said.

Some Catholics who were questioned found it odd to offer even a sliver of the dinner’s $1.5 million receipts to overindulgent clergymen. "I guess if you look at it one way, it’s horrible," said the Rev. John Grange of St. Jerome’s Church in the Bronx. "If you look at it another way, what’s $500, and how many people are really going to take them up on it?"

Five, so far, out of about 500 priests notified, Sister Walsh said. And the money will not be easy to claim. To get a weight-loss bonus, a priest must trim 10 points from his body-mass index in a year. For a 5-foot-10-inch, 240-pound man, that would mean losing 70 pounds. Smokers must quit for a year.