A collection-plate passer
Hello everyone!

I've come across this sentence in a book,

"The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser",

and I'm not sure I understand what "a collection-plate passer" means exactly. Strangely enough, they just ignored this part in the Russian translation. Could you please tell me, am I right thinking that it means that he wasn't inclined to make any donations (i.e., that he was that kind of person that tended to pass a - metaphorical? - collection plate to other people without putting anything into it)?

Question

A collection-plate passer
Hello everyone!

I've come across this sentence in a book,

"The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser",

and I'm not sure I understand what "a collection-plate passer" means exactly. Strangely enough, they just ignored this part in the Russian translation. Could you please tell me, am I right thinking that it means that he wasn't inclined to make any donations (i.e., that he was that kind of person that tended to pass a - metaphorical? - collection plate to other people without putting anything into it)?

Answer

A collection plate is something passed around during church services in the United States and Western countries for people to donate financial offerings to the church. When you say that someone is a collection-plate passer, it means he did not put any money in the plate. He just passed it.

In the context of the sentence, he is a very tight person when it comes to money. A lot of spendthrift people only spend money on necessities and not on charitable giving, such as giving to churches. Therefore, he is a collection-plate passer.

Answer

Thanks for the answer Gary! I think that "mortgage fancier" combined with "forecloser" means that the person is a moneylender who is quite strict with his borrowers and just sells the collateral if the borrower defaults on the loan - though maybe I'm wrong about it, I'm not really sure. I, too, think it all sounds a bit contradictory but it seems like "someone who just passes the plate on without donating" is the right answer, after all. Well, knowing the plot of the story, it makes more sense I suppose.

Answer

To be honest, I don't know. From just the writing, it's ambiguous, it could be either. 
It could be someone who just passes the plate on without donating, and it could be that he he is there, being part of the collection. Perhaps it's a phrase I haven't heard. 
The rest of the sentence doesn't really help, as it gives ambiguous clues: He is tight, i.e. stingy, so therefore likely to avoid donating, but also upright, so therefore unlikely to shirk his social duties.
It may not help that I don't understand 'mortgage fancier' either.