Talk:Priest

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  • Psychological evaluations offer a greater understanding of the developmental, psychological and other factors that can strengthen or hinder an individual's vocational discernment. They can help in predicting whether a candidate can live a healthy life as a priest and be effective in ministry.
    Such evaluations can screen for issues that can seriously impede a candidate's ability to pursue priestly formation, such as severe psychiatric disorders. This can help screen out those who would not succeed in formation and/or priestly life. They can also identify areas of personal growth that, although would not disqualify a man from formation, would need to be addressed and resolved prior to entering formation or to being ordained. Furthermore, evaluations can help identify various intellectual, character and/or spiritual strengths of a candidate, which is good for formators to know. They can help the candidate capitalize on those strengths throughout formation process.
  • All Catholic priests cannot be universally characterized in terms of personality and psychological functioning. Like many vocations and professions, a wide variety of individuals choose to become Catholic priests and a range of personality styles and levels of psychological health are represented in the priesthood. However, a fairly small number of research studies have investigated the psychological profiles of Catholic clergy or Catholic seminary students in an effort to better understand the psychological and personality functioning of these individuals (e.g., Banks, Mooney, Mucowski, & Williams, 1984; Bier, 1948; Keddy, Erdberg, & Sammon, 1990; McCarthy, 1942; Weisgerber, 1966). More studies have examined the psychological profiles of non-Catholic clergy such as Protestant ministers (e.g., Ashbrook & Powell, 1967; Ekhardt & Goldsmith, 1984; Patrick, 1990, 1991). The vast majority of these investigations have used the MMPI to assess personality and psychological functioning and the majority of these projects were conducted prior to 1980. However, a review of these and more recent studies indicate that specific clergy personality trends based on group data have surfaced. As part of a comprehensive review of the literature, Nauss (1973) investigated MMPI p~roflles of nine Protestant and two Catholic studies and found "... an amazing similarity..." (p. 84) and a "... high degree of uniformity among MMPI results.., suggest(ing) an easily identifiable pattern" (p. 89) with elevations on the K, Hy, Pd, Mr, and Ma scales and low scores on the Si scale. Nauss described the ministerial personality as being characterized by "... extroversion, reflectiveness or intuitiveness, nurturance, and co-operation, and environment ordering" (p. 89). Nanss further noted that Catholic seminary students tended to be more introverted than Protestants.
  • Some have suggested that priests and applicants to the priesthood too often experience psychological dysfunction (e.g., Gafford, 2001; Meloy, 1986). Others have suggested that the Church system may be designed to encourage men with significant psychosexual difficulties to enter religious life (Doyle, 2003; Sipe, 2004). The question of the psychological health of Catholic priests is an intriguing one that has received a great deal of media attention, but remarkably little empirical investigation in the professional psychological literature.
    Different types of people seek to become Catholic priests and a wide variety of personality styles are found in seminary and in the priesthood. Yet, a small number of empirical studies have examined the typical psychological profile of Catholic priests or seminary applicants (e.g., Banks, Mooney, Mucowski, & Williams, 1984; Gafford, 2001; Keddy, Erdberg, & Sammon, 1990; Kosek, 2000; Plante, Manuel, & Tandez, 1996). Many more research studies have investigated the psychological and personality profiles of non-Catholic clergy, such as Anglican or other protestant ministers (e.g., Ashbrook & Powell, 1967; Ekhardt & Goldsmith, 1984; Francis, Payne, & Jones, 2001; Musson & Francis, 2002; Patrick, 1990, 1991; Thorson, 1992).
  • The Church and society in general have changed a great deal since the 1973 review by Nauss and many wonder if applicants to the priesthood in more recent years are significantly different from those who entered religious life during previous generations. For example, prior to the Nauss review, many boys entered seminaries while they were still teenagers, whereas today’s applicant is likely to be closer to 30 years old (Plante et al., 1996).
  • Keddy et al. (1990) found elevated L scales on the MMPI, suggesting priests often maintain defensive styles, while Dunn (1990) reviewed the professional literature concerning MMPI investigations with Catholic priests, and noted frequent elevations on the Mf, Pt, and Sc Scales. These findings imply that priests, "...tend to be more perfectionistic, worrisome, introversive, socially inept and in more extreme cases, perhaps more isolated and withdrawn" (p. 133). Meloy (1986) suggests that Catholic clergy may tend to be narcissistic. Plante et al (1996) evaluated 21 priest applicants and found elevations on the MMPI measures of defensiveness (L, K, and R scales) as well as the MF, Hy, GF, Re, and OH scales. This suggests that they experience more gender feminine interests, interpersonal sensitivity, social responsibility, and challenges with coping with negative impulses associated with anger and hostility than the general population.
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