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STUDY ON PRIESTLY LIFE
AND MINISTRY

Summaries of the Report of the

Ad Hoc Bishops' Subcommittees on

HISTORY,

SOCIOLOGY and

PSYCHOLOGY

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC

BISHOPS



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/studyonpriestlylcath



STUDY ON PRIESTLY LIFE

AND MINISTRY

Summaries of the Ad Hoc Bishops’

Subcommittees on

HISTORY

SOCIOLOGY

PSYCHOLOGY

1971

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005



Copyright © 1971
National Conference of Catholic Bishops

All rights reserved



Contents

Introductory Note v

Report of the Committee Chairman (April, 1971) 1

Report of the Subcommittee on History 7

Report of the Subcommittee on Sociology 23

Report of the Subcommittee on Psychology 71

hi



NCCB Committee on Priestly

Life and Ministry

Members

JOHN CARDINAL KROL

Archbishop of Philadelphia

Chairman

JOHN CARDINAL CARBERRY

Archbishop of Saint Louis

JAMES V. CASEY

Archbishop of Denver

LEO C. BYRNE

Coadjutor Archbishop of

Saint Paul and Minneapolis

WILLIAM W. BAUM

Bishop of Springfield-

Cape Girardeau

ALDEN J. BELL

Bishop of Sacramento

ERNEST J. PRIMEAU

Bishop of Manchester

ALEXANDER M. ZALESKI

Bishop of Lansing

iv



Introductory Note

The materials in this booklet represent in summary form the find-

ings of three of the eight subcommittees of the NCCB Ad Hoc Com-

mittee for the Study on Priestly Life and Ministry. These summaries

of the Subcommittees on History, Sociology and Psychology were

presented to the members of the NCCB at the plenary meeting in

Detroit, Michigan, in April, 1971. The reports presented to the

bishops were reproduced in their entirety together with the text of

a special progress report on the entire Study also given to the bishops

at that time by Cardinal Krol, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee.

The work of the NCCB Ad Hoc Committee for the Study on

Priestly Life and Ministry is not complete. Other subcommittees are

still at work. Some of them are using the findings of the three sub-

committees which have already reported to the Conference. As

materials from other subcommittees become available, they will be

reported to the Conference members and eventually be available for

publication.

v





Report of John Cardinal Krol

Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for the

Study on Priestly Life and Ministry

Your Eminences and Your Excellencies:

The troubled state of human life throughout the world has intensi-

fied the difficulties which normally attend the life and ministry of

priests. The priest experiences the normal difficulties of average

human beings and reflects in his life the problems of the general

population. Additionally, he experiences the normal problem of

measuring up to the transcendental demands of the priestly ministry

of being a man of God among men; of being in the world, but not of

it; of conforming the world to Christ, without being conformed to it;

of exercising a never changing ministry, of being sensitive to the

changes in the life and conditions of those whom they serve, and of

being witnesses and dispensers of a life other than this earthly one.

These difficulties which normally attend the life and ministry of

priests, have been augmented in recent years by the radical and rapid

social and moral changes in contemporary life. The Conciliar Decree

on Priests (n. 22) referring to these radical and rapid changes ob-

serves that the Holy Spirit is impelling "the Church to open new

avenues of approach to the contemporary world and is also suggest-

ing and fostering fitting adaptations in the ministry of priests."

The Church in the United States has had a record of unparalleled

growth. From the days of the first missionaries, through the heavy

flow of immigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it

grew to a 17.7 million Catholic population with 21 thousand priests.

Because of the discriminatory restrictions introduced in 1921 and

1924, the flow of Catholic immigrants was reduced to an insignifi-

cant trickle. Since 1920, through natural rather than immigrational

accretion, the Catholic population grew from 17.7 to 47.8 million

and the number of priests increased from 21 to 59 thousand, for an

increase of 266% in population and 295% in the number of priests.

The 50 year increase approximates the total population of such

countries as Spain and Poland.

1



Such gratifying growth did not inhibit the bishops of the United

States from directing their attention to the difficulties experienced in

the life and ministry of priests as a result of the radical social and

moral changes in contemporary life. The bishops were eager to

learn the precise nature and dimensions of these difficulties. The

Conciliar documents (Church in the Modern World, 62; Bishops, 16,

17; Priests, 22) recommended the use of the findings of religious,

sociological, and psychological surveys to determine current prob-

lems and needs, and to adapt pastoral care and the ministry of priests

to such needs. The stream of "scientific" surveys which appeared

after the Council increased rather than dispelled confusion. Some

of the surveys were spotty and biased and geared to a predetermined

conclusion to serve as an instrument of propaganda. Some were the

work of lobbyists rather than scholars.

At the April, 1967, meeting, the Conference of Bishops directed

the Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices to conduct an in-

tensive and extensive study on the Life and Ministry of Priests. When

the members of this committee completed their three-year term of

office, they were constituted by the Conference in 1969 into an ad

hoc committee for the purpose of completing the Priesthood Study.

Since April, 1967, the full committee has met at least twice a year,

and the subcommittees have according to need and convenience

held many meetings. Progress reports have been made at the plenary

meetings during the past four years.

To insure objectivity, the Conference directed the committee to

aggregate as members and consultants, priests who would reflect the

wide spectrum of views and practices current in the life and ministry

of priests, and to employ agencies recognized generally and profes-

sionally for excellence and integrity. In October, 1967, the commit-

tee met with a number of priests competent in various fields, and

jointly designed plans for a comprehensive study which would

proceed along eight avenues: historical, doctrinal—both scriptural
and theological—spiritual, pastoral, ecumenical, liturgical, sociolog-
ical and psychological. Subcommittees chaired by priests of recog-

nized competence in their respective fields and moderated by

bishops of the ad hoc committee were established. Each priest

chairman, with prior consultation with the bishop-moderator, was

to aggregate four members and as many consultants as they con-

sidered necessary.

This plan was submitted to and approved by the Conference which

allocated the very generous grant of $300,000.00 for the study. It was

2



soon evident that there was a substantial underestimate of costs.

Rather than return to the Conference, the committee, with the

approval of the Conference President, sought and received funds

from private sources, and also solicited and received, through the

Conference of Men Religious, contributions from religious com-

munities of priests.

In the progress reports made in the past, it was repeatedly affirmed

that the objective aspects of the priesthood and of the priestly

ministry, are not proper subjects of a popular survey. What the

priesthood is, and what the priest must be and do , has been deter-

mined by Our Lord, as taught by the Church. The subjective aspect

of the priesthood—how a priest is to live and work in our day to ful-
fill his ministry, and how he can be an effective teacher and witness

of sanctity in the contemporary world—these are proper subjects of
a survey. We repeat that psychological and sociological data cannot

be used as a criterion of truth or as a norm of action. Such data can-

not be used, as Pope Paul noted in his Apostolic Exhortation (Dec. 8,

1970), to reconstruct a Christianity cut off from the unbroken tradi-

tion which links it to the faith of the apostles. Such surveys, he said,

are useful to discover thought patterns and serve as an invitation to

proclaim more effectively a message which raises the mind to the

level of divine realities.

It should be recalled that the questionnaires used in the surveys

reflect the combined efforts of the professional staff of the research

centers as well as of the full membership of the Ad Hoc Committee

and its subcommittees and representatives of the religious com-

munities of men. The questions were custom tailored to men of

faith, committed to the supernatural, who believe in the cross and

the resurrection, and who are dispensers of sacred mysteries radiat-

ing and resounding Christ. The questionnaires went through a series

of discussions, tests and modifications before final adoption. The

psychological survey was designed following consultations at a

national convention of an association of psychologists. With all the

intensive care given to the preparation of the sociological question-

naire, and in my opinion, the very gratifying results, following an

accepted procedure, the survey report is being evaluated by a team

of eminent sociologists—chaired by an Episcopalian—who were not
associated in the survey.

A survey is designed to elicit a balanced and objective fund of

information, without approving or disapproving any view or attitude.

Obviously, some information elicited, while subjectively accurate,

3



may be objectively incorrect. The Ad Hoc Committee has been

scrupulous in respecting the professional integrity of all involved in

the study. The committee has insisted on the directives given by

Pope Leo XIII when he opened the Vatican Archives
—

"not to dare

utter a falsehood—not to fear to speak the truth." Whatever our re-
action to the findings of the survey may be, we have reasonable as-

surance that according to the best professional procedures and

standards, we have an accurate picture of attitudes and thought

patterns that are current.

The total study is approaching completion. The historical section

completed its work early this year. Monsignor John Tracy Ellis and

his committee have worked diligently and kept their schedule. Their

work is in the process of printing and publication. The sociological

survey is completed and is in the process of evaluation by an inde-

pendent team of sociologists. As soon as this is available, it will be

sent together with the full survey report to the bishops. The psycho-

logical study is completed and as soon as copies of the full report

are received, they also will be transmitted to the bishops. The doc-

trinal studies in scripture and theology are in the stages of comple-

tion. Other sections and avenues of the study made their contribu-

tion by submitting questions which would elicit information about

liturgy, ecumenism, pastoral ministry, etc.

For the sake of a balanced presentation, at the suggestion of a

director of one of the studies, the Ad Hoc Committee, with the ap-

proval of the Executive Committee, had the director of studies pre-

pare a summary report, which would be available to the Conference

for the April meeting, and be released to the mass media. The plan

was finalized and announced in a letter of April 5 to the members of

the Ad Hoc Committee.

The Bishops' Study on Priestly Life and Ministry has generated a

great deal of interest. The announcement that the 1971 Roman

Synod would consider the Ministerial Priesthood increased the pop-

ular interest and aroused the interest of the mass media of com-

munication. This was clearly evident from the direct and oblique

efforts to gain advance information. The committee, after discussions

with the Conference President and Secretary, took careful precau-

tions to see that the report would properly be made first to the

bishops, and the mass media would be given the summary reports

beforehand for immediate release after the bishops received the

report. You may have noted that the summary reports, which formed

4



a part of the documentation for the April meeting, were copyrighted.

The copyright and the release date were clearly and repeatedly

marked on each section of the summary report. Bishop Ber-

nards, Father Neill and the NCCB staff took extraordinary precau-

tions. After the reports were mailed to the bishops, one newspaper

carried a story on the study, thereby placing other mass media out-

lets at a disadvantage. With prior consultation and approval of the

Conference President, Secretary and the Office of Information, a

press conference was scheduled at which all the documents and the

press release which was to have been distributed on April 26, were

given together with a statement of explanation to the reporters at

the conference. Provisional preparations for such a premature re-

lease had been made both for the sake of the study and in fairness to

those of the mass media who cooperated. Though the premature

release is regrettable, it may hopefully allow the bishops of the

Conference to discuss the reports of the study in a calm atmosphere.

As Chairman of a committee which during the last four years has

worked diligently to carry out the charge received from the Confer-

ence, it is my pleasant duty to pay sincere compliments for the vision

and foresight which led you to authorize so comprehensive a study.

Your generous grant and your ever-willing cooperation in promoting

the surveys, is a glowing tribute to and an irrefutable evidence of

your deep concern for your co-workers. The crowning compliment

to your vision is that the study which you authorized four years ago

is being completed in time for the Roman Synod, convoked by His

Holiness, Pope Paul VI to discuss the Ministerial Priesthood.

The Committee is pleased to submit the results of the independent

study and research. It does so without any official endorsement

—

which would exceed its competence. It is anticipated that the reac-

tion to the reports will be uneven. You will have the opportunity to

hear the presentation of the reports and to discuss the contents with

those who submitted them. Whatever may be your reaction, you

will share our conviction that the dimensions of the study have not

been exceeded; that they provide a mass of information of incalcula-

ble value and that they merit careful study and that they will pro-

vide a sound basis for future instructions, directives and actions.

Again we pay sincere compliments and congratulations to the

Bishops of the Conference for their foresight and generosity. We
express our sentiments of profound gratitude for their cooperation.

We conclude with the suggestion that the Conference might well

5



consider the possibility of setting up a new committee to study the

reports in full detail with a view of recommending possible direc-

tives for instructions and programs to enhance the life and ministry

of priests in our times.

^John Cardinal Krol

Chairman

6



Report

Subcommittee on History

Subcommittee members contributing to the report:

Rev. Msgr. John Tracy Ellis, Chairman

Rev. Robert Trisco

Rev. Michael V. Gannon

Rev. John P. Marschall, C.S.V.

Rev. David J. O'Brien





The Formation of the American Priest:

An Historical Perspective

By

JOHN TRACY ELLIS*

It is clear . . . that the world in its present state is the outcome

of movement. Whether we consider the rocky layers envelop-

ing the Earth ... or the structure of languages spoken upon it,

we are forced to the same conclusion: that everything is the

sum of the past and that nothing is comprehensive except

through its history .
1

The Catholic priest of the United States has been no exception to

this universal proposition of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It has thus

been with a view of making the priests of 1971 more comprehensible

to themselves and to all other men, that the five members of the sub-

committee on history of the Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry

have endeavored to pursue the task assigned to them in December,

1967. Among the varied factors that shape a man's ultimate charac-

ter and destiny, second only to his family inheritance and ethnic

background, is his education, and in the case of a candidate for the

priesthood this obviously embraces the training of the spirit as well

as of the mind. In other words, the kind of spiritual and intellectual

tutoring a man has received during his formative years will play a

major role in determining what kind of priest he will be, regardless

of whether his ministry be lived out in a traditional parish frame-

work, in education, or in the social apostolate.

In 1953 the distinguished professor of ecclesiastical history in the

Catholic University of Louvain, Canon Roger Aubert, published a

world survey of Catholic theology in which he found worthy of men-

tion 114 Frenchmen, twenty Germans, five Dutch or Flemish, and

one Italian theologian. Fourteen years later George H. Tavard, A. A.,

referred to the Aubert study and remarked that in the interval he

believed that the Germans had taken the lead over the French. In

* Monsignor Ellis, a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, is professor of

church history in the University of San Francisco and lecturer in church history in

the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley.

1 The Future of Man. Translated by Norman Denny (New York: Harper & Row,

Publishers, 1964), p. 12.

9



neither case did the Americans merit more than Tavard's comment

to the effect that in spite of the able specialized studies of the Fran-

ciscan Institute of Saint Bonaventure University and the noteworthy

contributions made by Theological Studies
,
"the United States lagged

behind ..."
2
While the evaluation of these two writers is not be-

yond question, the historian of the Church in this country is com-

pelled to admit that the American record in this regard has been

anything but impressive. Why? It is only the historical circumstances

that can yield a satisfactory answer, as it is only the historical record

that can explain the generally low state of the intellectual life among

the clergy as a whole. It is that record that has been set forth in the

present essay.

Obviously, space will not permit here an extended discussion

of all the causes for this situation. Let a brief summary of one of the

major factors suffice by way of illustration of the essay's general

contents. The Church of the United States has been prevented from

offering high quality education to her clergy such as they have re-

ceived, for example, in recent decades in the field of Scripture, in

part because of the pervading weakness that has been an inevit-

able accompaniment of the proliferation of numerous and enfeebled

seminaries. The malaise appeared soon after the birth of the organ-

ized Church, for when certain farsighted bishops attempted at the

Baltimore provincial councils of 1829 and 1833 to win assent for a

central or national seminary, the effort failed. Even the opening of

the Catholic University of America as a graduate school of theology

in 1889, the first educational commitment within the country of all

the Catholics of the land, did not stem the tide. Instead of lending

support to a national seminary such as the Irish had begun in 1795

at Maynooth and the Belgians had reopened at Louvain in 1834, the

senseless waste of manpower and money continued unabated

among the diocesan and religious clergy with no heed paid to the

interests of the Church at large. As a consequence by 1900 there

were 109 seminaries—major and minor, diocesan and religious

—

with a total of 4,628 students enrolled, or an average of slightly more

than forty-two young men to each institution. Nor did the pace

slacken as the Church moved into the second half of the twentieth

century, for by January 1, 1960, these institutions reached a record

total to date of 525. Moreover, this development ran counter to the

cautionary note sounded by Pope Pius XI in December, 1935, on the

2 Aubert, "La Theologie Catholique au Milieu du XX
e Siecle," La Revue Nouvelle,

XVII (Juin 15, 1953-Octobre 15, 1953), 561-576; Tavard, The Pilgrim Church (New

York: Herder and Herder, 1967), p. 16.

10



occasion of his golden jubilee as a priest. Acknowledging that fre-

quently it was impossible for each diocese to have its own seminary

properly staffed and equipped, the pontiff urged that where this was

the condition the bishops of a given region—and here the counsel
was equally if not more applicable to the superiors of religious orders

and congregations "should concentrate and unite their forces

in a common Seminary, fully worthy of its high purpose. . .
."

He had

never let pass, he said, a chance to favor and encourage efforts of

this kind. "Often, in fact," declared Pius XI, "We have suggested and

recommended them." 3 Failure to heed the pope's words with the

seriousness that they deserved has proved a costly venture for the

American Church that now finds herself with numerous expensive

and commodious buildings whose virtual emptiness has sharpened

the uneasiness and embarrassment that the Church has experienced

as the depth of the current revolutionary condition in the world at

large has pressed ever more insistently upon her.

Yet the history of priestly formation in the United States has not all

been sketched in tones and shades as somber as these. If the 1960's

were ushered in with unmistakable signs of grave ferment among

seminary faculties and student bodies that revealed how naive it

would be to think that these men could remain aloof and untouched

by the age in which we all live, during these same years the Church's

aggiornamento of our time opened the seminaries, as it did the

minds of priests long ordained, to promising vistas for the deepening

of their spiritual lives and the improvement of their intellectual for-

mation. The enlightened directives of the Congregation for Christian

Education made public in June, 1968, would illustrate what is meant,

as the rapidly accelerating movement for accreditation of the semi-

naries since 1966, the year the first Catholic institutions entered the

hitherto predominantly Protestant professional organization, the

American Association of Theological Schools in the United States and

Canada, would likewise attest.

Above all, the Catholic Church of the United States in the person

of her bishops, priests, religious, and laity has been learning in a

gradual and often painful way how to live with mystery. The Church

herself is a mystery, and her constituents must learn that part of that

mystery adheres in the question to which there is no answer, as they

must become reconciled to the fact that the neat solutions that may

3 The Catholic Priesthood. Encyclical Letter ("Ad Catholici Sacerdotii") of His

Holiness, Pope Pius XI (Washington: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1936),

pp. 44-45.

11



have served a simpler age will not suffice for the complicated and

tormented time in which men of the late twentieth century are

called to live. The situation, embracing as it does every Catholic

—

bishop, priest, religious, layman and laywoman—has been analyzed
by many thoughtful minds, but for those whose immediate task it is

to shape the spiritual and intellectual formation of the Church's

future priests amid the baffling and bewildering circumstances in

which men must now move, the matter has rarely been expressed

with greater clarity and directness than by Denis E. Hurley, O.M.I.,

Archbishop of Durban, when he declared:

Church authority will not solve this problem alone.

There is no going back to the old idea that ready-made

solutions can be handed down by authority. Authority's

function is to set up the conditions in which a solution can

be sought by the Church, that is, the community. In most

cases there will be no final solution, only a continual

attempt to adjust oneself to a perpetually evolving situ-

ation. This is certainly true of the methods of priestly

training that will have to be fashioned in the near future

to meet the crisis of relevance, loneliness and authority .
4

4 Introduction to The Experience of Priesthood

,

edited by Brian Passman (Wilkes-

Barre: Dimension Books, 1968), p. xvi.

12



Bishops and Their Priests

in the United States

By

ROBERT TRISCO *

The purpose of this essay is to describe the successive efforts of

American bishops and priests to alter the laws and customs regulat-

ing their reciprocal relations. Their initiatives were for the most part

directed to giving the priests of a diocese these four benefits: 1) a

voice in the selection of their bishop; 2) a share in his authority

through the creation of a chapter of canons or a board of consultors;

3) security of tenure through the appointment of irremovable

pastors; and 4) the protection of strict judicial procedures in case of

accusation of serious misdeeds. In the opinion of many priests these

objectives could be achieved only by introducing the canon law of

the universal Church into the United States instead of the special

arrangements which had been permitted from the beginning because

of the missionary status of American Catholicism.

A connected narrative of the principal events of more than purely

local significance to this movement is presented. It begins with the

American priests' obtaining the privilege of electing their first bishop

in 1788 and ends with the enforcement of the Code of Canon Law

in 1918. It traces the advances and counter-movements through the

correspondence of bishops and priests with one another and with

the Holy See, through the deliberations and decisions of provincial

councils in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, and New York and of

the plenary councils of Baltimore, through the impartial reports to

Rome of official foreign visitors (Archbishop Gaetano Bedini in 1854

and Bishop George Conroy in 1878), through the publication of

books, booklets, and periodical articles, through the newspaper

campaign for "priests' rights" in 1868-1870, and through the direc-

tives and decrees of the congregations of the Roman Curia.

* Father Trisco, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, is associate professor of

church history in the Catholic University of America, editor of the Catholic His-

torical Review, and secretary of the American Catholic Historical Association.

13



The study shows that the greatest amount of satisfaction was given

to the clergy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. At the

behest of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide a commission of

investigation was set up in each diocese to examine cases of priests

according to prescribed rules and thus to diminish the number of

complaints and appeals previously sent to Rome (1878), and certain

priests were allowed to submit a term in view of filling a vacancy in

the see or naming a coadjutor; a board of consultors was organized

to advise the bishops in certain matters; and some pastors in each

diocese were declared "irremovable" in the canonical sense of the

term (all in 1884). The ways in which some of these concessions

were circumvented and withdrawn in the early twentieth century are

then set forth. At the end an attempt is made to characterize the

attitudes of the bishops and priests toward each other, to seek

the fundamental reasons for their disagreements, and to point out

the relative strengths and weaknesses, as well as the common as-

sumptions, of both sides during the period studied.

14



Before and After Modernism: The

Intellectual Isolation of the

American Priest

By

MICHAEL V. CANNON *

The Fathers of Vatican Council II, in their Decree on Priestly

Formation (1965), directed that candidates for the priesthood in

theological seminaries be made knowledgeable in the major fields of

contemporary secular thought, philosophical and scientific, so that

they would be, as it was said, "properly prepared in dialogue with

the men of their own day."

1

Since the date of that decree numerous

other directives from the Church's leadership have encouraged both

seminarians and ordained priests to form close, friendly contacts

between themselves and the intellectual community at large.

This counsel many clergy of the United States have followed dur-

ing the past five and a half years, in graduate education, workshops,

seminars, and study weeks, as well as in a wider range of reading

than that sought after by American clergy in the pre-conciliar days.

But this new and varied association with learning has not been ac-

complished without strain. Particularly the middle-aged and older

priests have found it difficult to incorporate secular learning into a

clerical intellectual tradition which, until very recently, was wont to

regard much of that same learning as, if not deviously wrong, un-

necessary or useless for a priest to know. This contrary tradition has

so prevailed in the history of the American priest since the inaugura-

tion of the Church here in 1790 that even those clergy who achieved

intellectual distinction in given fields—and one may mention such
names out of the present century as Francis E. Gigot, John B. Hogan,

William J. Kerby, Edward A. Pace, John M. Cooper, Peter Guilday,

John A. Ryan, Thomas Verner Moore, John LaFarge, Gustave Weigel,

* Monsignor Gannon is pastor of Saint Augustine Church and associate professor

of religion and history in the University of Florida at Gainesville.

1 Walter M. Abbot, S.J., and Joseph Gallagher (Eds.), The Documents of Vatican

II (New York: America Press, 1966), p. 450.

15



and John Courtney Murray—cast their lights for the most part in
magnificent isolation from the ongoing American intellectual experi-

ence.

During the nineteenth century the priest confronted the emerging

American nation with principles, points of view, and practices that

ran directly counter to the popular experience: he represented insti-

tutional immutability in a land committed to change; unbending

theological doctrine to a people accustomed to doctrinal com-

promise and adjustment; a complex and relatively inflexible intel-

lectual system to men whose minds refused to be clamped in place,

a negative approach to mammonism, divorce, sexuality, and other

moral problems which most Americans seemed content on leaving

to heaven or to the courts; and a curious devotional apparatus

which, the American Protestant ethic held, took men's time and

energy away from their God-appointed industry, enterprise, and

manifest destiny. By all these criteria the priest seemed to other

thoughtful Americans, and frequently to himself, to be out of step

with the ongoing national ethos.

Intellectuals there were among the clergy, but the intellectualism

in which they were formed and which they themselves evidenced

was such as to restrict rather than expand the mind, to seek simple

preservation and elaboration of antique truths rather than their

creative development; to promote a defensive style of apologetics

rather than open historical criticism; to build fences instead of

bridges. It was an intellectualism fairly bristling with non-intellec-

tualism, and its name was "scholasticism"—not that neo-scholasti-
cism which was fostered in the Thomistic revival of Pope Leo XIII, nor

that academic scholasticism which even today commands the respect

of Protestant and secular scholars in the Medieval Academy of

America and elsewhere, but that artificial, gerrymandering scholasti-

cism composed by syllogisms piled Ossa on Pelion, frozen into text-

book form, and memorized by unnumbered seminarians. It was

the attitude of mind which in 1938 led a priest-educator to declare

that one cannot be a possessor of truth and a pursuer of truth at one

and the same time, "attempting the impossible task of being Catholic

in creed and anti-Catholic in culture." He concluded: "In sum, then,

research cannot be the primary object of a Catholic graduate school,

because it is at war with the whole Catholic life of the mind."
2
That

2 George Bull, S.J., "The Function of the Catholic Graduate School," Thought,

XIII (September, 1938), 364, 378.

16



war has now concluded, but for many middle-aged and older priests

the peace is an uneasy one.

To a larger extent than historians of American Catholicism have,

perhaps, realized, the condemnation of Modernism in 1907 by Pope

Pius X was the chief contributing force to the separation of American

clerical thought from American thought generally during the present

century. It is clear from recent researches that by 1910 a decisive pall

had fallen over intellectual activity in the teaching and, a fortiori ,

the pastoral priesthood of this country. The clergy was overcome by

a grand peur. A gradually enveloping dread of heresy settled over

episcopal residences, chanceries, seminaries, Catholic institutions of

higher learning, and parish rectories. Security, safety, conservatism

became national imperatives. Free intellectual inquiry in ecclesias-

tical circles came to a virtual standstill. Contacts with Protestant and

secular thinkers, never very many in the first place, were broken off.

It was as though someone had pulled a switch and the lights had

failed all across the American Catholic landscape.

Now that the lights have gone on again the American priest has

been encouraged to become involved with the thought as well as

with the action of the world about him. He is to be alert, aware, and

open to all things of the mind. He is able to tolerate uncertainty and

to assign to its proper place what is tentative, provisional, or ambig-

uous. Without losing his sacred, or hieratic, function, he is to know

and to contribute to the intellectual ferment of his times. What is

needed of him, said the decree of Vatican Council II, is that he be a

man who understands what John Ireland, Archbishop of Saint Paul,

meant when he said eighty-two years ago:

This is an intellectual age. ... By intellect, public opinion,

the ruling power of the age, is formed. The Church herself

will be judged by the standard of intellect. Catholics must

excel in religious knowledge. . . . They must be in the fore-

ground of intellectual movements of all kinds. The age will

not take kindly to religious knowledge separated from

secular knowledge. 3

3 The Church and Modern Society. Lectures and Addresses (Saint Paul: Pioneer

Press, 1905), I, 92.

17



Diocesan and Religious Clergy: The

History of a Relationship, 1789-1969

By

JOHN P. MARSCHALL, C.S.V.*

The internal ruptures between religious orders, bishops, and dio-

cesan clergy, like any tension within a family, have obscured com-

mon ties of ministry and charity. During Vatican Council II the

Superior General of the Society of Mary, Joseph Buckley, S.M., spoke

plainly to the issue that for centuries had lay buried beneath the

simmering conflict between diocesan and religious clergy. Father

Buckley was quoted as saying, "Religious priests in active life are

closer to diocesan priests than they are to contemplative Religious."

He added that, "Bishops want to exercise a greater authority over

Religious in their diocese. Religious are worried about this. But we

Religious might as well face up to the fact that some of our habits

irritate the diocesan clergy. ..."
1

The Catholic Church in the United States has not been exempt

from the centuries-old drive to maintain unity and good order. The

ingredients of controversy have been the recruitment of seminarians,

pastoral jurisdiction, and control of monies within the diocese

ranging cross-country from Baltimore and New York to Portland

and San Francisco. Incidents have involved bishops reflecting the

sentiments of one man who would, "suffer no man in my diocese

that I cannot control,"
2
as well as religious who would have agreed

with the leader of a large religious group who predicted, "woe to

Catholicism, if the number of Irish bishops increases in the United

States; schism will come from that. ..." 3

* Father Marschall, a priest of the Congregation of Saint Viator, is director of the

Center for Religion and Life and lecturer in history in the University of Nevada at

Reno.

1 Vincent A. Yzermans (Ed.), American Participation in the Second Vatican Coun-

cil (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1967), p. 437.

2 The Most Reverend John Hughes, D.D., Brownson's Quarterly Review, Last

Series II (1874), p. 84.

3 Archives of the Archdiocese of St. Louis: Jesuitica Missouri Province, John Elet,

S.J. to John Roothan, S.J., St. Louis, January 14, 1850.

18



American bishops have long coped with the problem of sharing

deliberative policy-making power with major superiors of religious

orders. At the same time, religious have chafed under what some

considered to be the unrestricted power and arbitrariness of their

local ordinaries. Instances of religious congregations "milking" a

parish or a city for funds to be used outside the diocese under-

standably have led diocesan clergy to guard "plum" parishes for

themselves. Sometimes religious have self-righteously flaunted their

academic degrees, while some diocesan clergy have regarded

religious as natural competitors rather than cooperators in the

priestly ministry. It is not altogether without precedent that religious

orders have used their foreign superiors or the Congregation for

Religious as a buffer between themselves and their local ordinary,

while some bishops have expressed the fear that increased inde-

pendence of religious groups would lead to "all order in the Church

of God (being) turned to chaos." 4

The issues of authority, jurisdiction, and numerical supremacy

have produced conflicts which, enlarged upon by fertile imagina-

tions, feed the legacy of fraternal suspicion, narrow pride, or a

myopic view of the pastoral care of souls. At the same time, exam-

ples of cooperation continue to be lost with the memories of dying

men. Acknowledging the errors and misunderstandings of the past

as well as the disparate means of pursuing the same pastoral goals,

may yet lead diocesan and religious priests to more intensive mutual

counsel, trust and integrity.

4 Archives of the Archdiocese of Newark: Drawer 25, copy, December 15, 1877,

in Carl Derivaux Hinrichsen, "The Diocese of Newark: The Episcopacy of Michael

Augustine Corrigan, 1873-1880," Records of the American Catholic Historical Society

of Philadelphia
,
LXXVII (March, 1966), p. 21.

19



The American Priest and Social Action

By

DAVID J. O'BRIEN*

The vocation of the priesthood has always been understood in one

way or another in social terms, although for many years social action

was regarded as a distinct and often minor part of the priest's respon-

sibilities. In the United States the priest played a key role in a social

action movement which was shaped by the demands of the Amer-

ican situation, where the Church was composed of a minority of the

population and was regarded by many with suspicion, and by the

needs and aspirations of the Catholic people themselves. Because

the bulk of the Catholic population was composed of poor, working

class immigrants and their children, the priest often was over-

whelmed by his pastoral responsibilities. Yet, for the same reason,

those responsibilities were broadly defined to include such matters

as education, development of language skills, intervention with

public agencies, employment services, and a host of other tasks by

which the priest could aid his people's adjustment to the American

situation.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the Church started

organizing on a more professional basis her many social and charit-

able agencies, leading to the development of priest-professionals

skilled in particular aspects of social problems, who often directed

parochial institutions to which pastors referred people in need. At

the same time, organized social action programs aimed at reform of

the nation's economic institutions were developed, often with

clerical leadership. Inspired by the social encyclicals of Popes Leo

XIII and Pius XI, the social action movement sought to eliminate the

underlying causes of poverty and distress with which Catholic

charitable agencies had to deal. Toward this end the leaders of

Catholic social action first tried to organize a national Catholic

instrument for social reform, then to develop through Catholic

Action a solid program for reform which would involve all levels of

the Church. The greatest successes of this movement came in the

* Doctor O'Brien is associate professor of history in the College of the Holy Cross,

Worcester, Massachusetts.

20



years immediately before and after World War II when such organ-

izations as the Young Catholic Students, Young Catholic Workers,

the Christian Family Movement, and the Association of Catholic

Trade Unionists organized laymen to combat social evils with cleri-

cal guidance but yet with a large degree of autonomy. This style

was especially successful in the Archdiocese of Chicago, a pattern

that assigned the priest the particular task of training lay apostles

through the liturgy, religious education and formation, and stimula-

tion of organization, an indirect role suited to an increasingly

Americanized middle class Catholic population no longer in need

of the kind of direct aid and leadership characteristic of earlier im-

migrant parishes.

In recent years this position has, in turn, come under criticism from

several directions. The statements of Vatican Council II on the

Church and her relation to the modern world seemed to many to

suggest the need for direct action to combat injustice by all Christians,

priests and laymen, so that many clergymen felt impelled to take a

direct role in movements for peace and justice. From quite another

direction many felt the need for the Church as an institution to be-

come directly involved in the struggle for freedom and equality of

urban minorities, using her resources and influence to aid efforts at

community development rather than awaiting the initiative of lay-

men. Finally, the war in Viet Nam, climaxing several years of national

turmoil over questions of race and poverty, led many priests to ques-

tion seriously the moral legitimacy of American institutions and to

examine with equal seriousness the role of the Church in American

society. The result has been more profound divisions over the social

role and responsibility of the clergy, divisions originating in and

deepened by the continuing controversy over the structure and mis-

sion of the modern Church and the character of modern American

society. Yet the pastoral concern which underlay the work of urban

pastors and priests dedicated to social service and social reform,

remains a firm foundation on which to rediscover an important and

valuable role for the priest in the social action for the future.

21





Report

Subcommittee on Sociology

Subcommittee members contributing to the report:

Rev. Andrew Greeley, Chairman

Summary: American Priests, A report of the

National Opinion Research Center prepared for the

National Conference of Catholic Bishops



NOTE

The accompanying material is intended only as a preliminary

introduction to NORC's report American Priests. It consists of an

introduction, briefly describing the goals and methods of the report,

brief summaries of most of the chapters, a selection of tables chosen

to illustrate some of the summary statements, and the concluding

chapter of the report. Necessarily such an introduction lacks the

complete documentation, explanation, and technical nuance that

would be most satisfactory from the viewpoint of the social re-

searcher. The tables in particular are presented as illustrations of the

material to be found in the complete text of the report. NORC cau-

tions all readers that full explanation and interpretation of these

tables should be based on a careful reading of the complete text of

the report. Furthermore, NORC wishes to note that there are 150

pages of methodological explanation and justification in the com-

plete text; the report can only be evaluated after these pages have

been read.



I

The Purpose of the Research

This report is a description and analysis of the life and ministry of

Roman Catholic priests in the United States of America. While it is

intended to provide material for policy-making decisions, it is not

oriented toward policy recommendations. In order to emphasize

this point, we distinguish the following steps between the comple-

tion of data collection and policy decisions:

1 . Description

In the first phase, the sheer raw facts that have been collected in

the research project are presented. It will be reported, for example,

that 3 per cent of the diocesan priests in the country are either cer-

tainly or probably going to leave the priesthood in the near future.

No attempt is made to explain this phenomenon; the phenomenon

itself is merely described. The first part of all the subsequent chap-

ters in this report will be devoted to description.

2. Analysis of Explanation

In the second phase, an attempt is made to discover the under-

lying reasons behind the phenomenon. For example, an effort will

be made to find out why 3 per cent of the diocesan priests in the

country were preparing in 1970 to leave the priesthood and why

another 10 per cent were uncertain about their future, as will be

evident later in this report. This issue—along with many others to
be treated in the present volume—is extremely complicated. No
simple, one-factor explanation can be found. However, among the

causes that will be discovered for the inclination to leave the priest-

hood is having "modern" religious values. But the analysis simply

does not stop with the description of such a relationship. Whenever

possible an attempt will be made to "explain the explanation." It

might be asked, for example, whether "modern" values relate to a

feeling of loneliness and whether this, in turn, relates to a propensity

to leave the priesthood. As long as such "explanation of explana-

tions" can be substantiated by the data in hand, we remain in the

second phase. However, when it becomes impossible to substantiate

a secondary explanation by the data, we pass to the third phase.

25



3. Speculation

In this phase, certain suggestions are made that might provide

explanations of puzzles uncovered in the data, but such suggestions

have no substantiation in the existing data. Thus, one member of the

NORC research team has suggested on several occasions that the

principal change in the priesthood in the last decade is that now it is

possible to leave the priesthood but that discontent was strong a

decade ago and may have been even stronger than it is at the present

time. Speculation is interesting; it adds spice and variety to a report;

and it is part of the craft of the social researcher. However, since

there was no survey taken ten years ago, it cannot be said whether

clerical morale is better or worse now than it was a decade ago.

Hence, the speculation cannot be substantiated. We shall period-
ically engage in speculation in the course of the present report, but

the reader may be assured that such speculation will be labeled as

such.

4. Recommendations

In this phase, someone, after carefully inspecting the data, may

suggest to policy-makers what appropriate decisions might be based

on the explanations, analyses, and speculations in the report. When

this phase is entered, research as such is finished. While research

findings may strongly indicate that certain courses of actions would

be appropriate, they cannot command such courses of action. All

the researcher can say, for example, is that the absence of a specific

change is likely to heighten a problem within the group studied. Be-

yond that, his competency as a researcher cannot go. He may make

recommendations under pressure from a client, and there is nothing

wrong with such recommendations so long as it is clear that when

the researcher begins to make recommendations, he ceases to be a

researcher and instead becomes a consultant. He is expressing his

own personal opinion, however well informed and expert that

opinion might be. In the present report, given the nature of the sub-

ject matter being studied, there will be no recommendations.
1

5. Policy Decisions

Even if a researcher has been cajoled into making recommenda-

tions, it does not follow that simply because his recommendations

have arisen from his research, they must automatically be accepted.

1 In other NORC reports an occasional chapter of recommendations is added,

but this is generally at the insistence of the client. See Spaeth and Greeley (1970).

26



In the final analysis, the role of policy-maker and researcher are

distinct, except in the rare instance where one man occupies both

positions. Since none of the NORC staff are members of the Amer-

ican ecclesiastical hierarchy, that combination of roles is excluded in

the present instance. However skillful his research, and however

wise his recommendations, the researcher realizes that policy-makers

must consider factors other than those on which his competency

bears. He may think the policy-maker has erred, but unless he mis-

understands his own function, he has no right to assume that re-

search automatically dictates either a policy decision or the methods

of implementing that decision. The best the researcher can hope for

is that his efforts become an important input both in the making and

execution of policy. If he claims any more, then trouble and con-

fusion are likely.
2

Such a view of the research enterprise is implicit in any NORC

report. It is made explicit in the introduction to this report because

the NORC research team is well aware of the controversial and

sensitive areas into which it has probed. We realize that our data
could be used to provide ammunition for both sides of an important

policy debate in the American Church. It is legitimate, of course, to

use data in a policy debate as long as it is not torn from its context.

But data in their proper context generally reveal that reality is gray.

NORC specifically rejects the use of its empirical data in such a way

as to argue that specific policies have been "scientifically proven."

We are aware that in certain other countries, Catholic sociologists
have on occasion argued that the wisdom of policies has been "sci-

entifically" validated by social research. We reject both this notion
and any use of the data in this report to support such a notion. This

is a research monograph, not a series of policy recommendations,

and much less a political treatise.

The Phases of the Research Project

We distinguish six phases in the research project: (1) preliminary,

(2) data collection, (3) data processing, (4) construction of indices,

(5) analysis and preparation of the report, and (6) review of the

report.

1. Preliminary Phase

Work on NORC Study 5029 began on March 1, 1969. During the
preliminary stage, the first step was the design of the study. In this

2 On this subject, see Moynihan (1969).

27



step, the general subject, "Life of the Ministry," was developed into

somewhat more specific categories, such as morale, relationships,

spirituality, attitudes and values, and future plans. Some determina-

tion was also made on what general groups of respondents were to

be surveyed. It was decided that in addition to a sample of diocesan

and religious clergy in the United States, questionnaires would be

sent to all the bishops and major superiors in the American Church,

and a somewhat modified questionnaire would be sent to a sample

of "resigned" priests.
3

The next step was the specification and the operationalization of

variables. In this step, the research staff asked itself what specific

and concrete aspects in the life and ministry of the priest it was to

observe through the means of its questionnaire. What are, for ex-

ample, the various dimensions of "morale" and how might they be

measured? Two of the dimensions that we decided upon were

"occupational satisfaction" and "psychological well-being." The

first of these variables was operationalized through the work-satisfac-

tion index of Patricia C. Smith and her colleagues (Smith, Kendall,

and Hulin, 1969); the second through the "happiness" index devel-

oped by Norman M. Bradburn (1969).

This early phase of the project was substantially complete by the

summer of 1969, and the research team turned to the construction

of the questionnaire—seven drafts in all. It was reviewed and revised
both by the survey team and by senior colleagues at NORC. A

penultimate draft of the questionnaire was pretested with a sample

of 150 respondents, and after further consultation with NORC col-

leagues, the final version was prepared. (A separate modified ques-

tionnaire for resigned priests was also pretested with a sample of 100

resignees.) The final form of the main questionnaire was ready in

November of 1969.

Through the entire preliminary effort of project design and ques-

tionnaire construction, constant consultation was in progress with

NORC colleagues, with officers of various priests' organizations, with

members of the Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee for the Study of the

3 The term "resigned" (or "resignee") is viewed in this report to describe those

who have withdrawn from the active ministry. While this is a word that seems least

objectionable to such priests, it must be emphasized that its use in the present

report is entirely neutral and implies no theological or moral judgment either for

or against those who have resigned.

28



Life and Ministry of the Priest (a whole day's consultation was de-

voted to the penultimate draft of the questionnaire), and with a

special panel of consultants appointed by the sociology subcom-

mittee of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Study of the Life and Minis-

try of the Priest. Members of this committee are Reverend Robert

McNamara, S.J., Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Loyola

University of Chicago; Professor James J. Vanecko, Department of

Sociology, Brown University; Professor Donald Warwick, Harvard

University; Monsignor George Higgins, United States Catholic Con-

ference, Washington, D.C.; and Reverend Joseph Fichter, Divinity

School, Harvard University. Other sociologists who were consulted

were Sister Marie Augusta Neal, S.N.D., Emmanuel College, Boston;

Dr. Edgar Mills, Ministry Studies Board, National Council of

Churches; and Professor Jeffrey Hadden, Tulane University. The

NORC team is grateful for the help of these distinguished scholars,

but it goes without saying that these scholars should in no way be

considered responsible for the design, the questionnaire, or the final

report.

While the questionnaire was being designed, constructed, and

pretested, the NORC sampling department was preparing and draw-

ing a sample of the American clergy. Although it would have been

relatively easy to draw a simple random sample of the American

clergy, such a sample would have seriously impaired the staff's

capacity to analyze not only individuals but also institutions such as

dioceses and religious communities. Therefore, the sample that was

actually drawn is a multistage probability sample that not only repre-

sents accurately the American priesthood but also makes possible

the analysis of certain subinstitutions within the American Church.

A further activity during the preliminary phase of the project was

the preparation of a lengthy bibliography on the subject of the life

and ministry of the priesthood. (This bibliography has not been

included in the present report because of space limitations.)

2. Data Collection

One of the major problems encountered in the survey was experi-

enced in the data-collection phase. We had assumed that the mail-
ing service of The Official Catholic Directory could provide accurate

lists of the names and addresses of the diocesan clergy in the U.S.

However, careful examination of the lists obtained for a number of

29



large dioceses revealed inaccuracies, in many instances as high as

20 per cent. We therefore determined that The Directory lists could
not be relied upon without undergoing the risk of substantial prob-

lems in attempting to obtain a high response rate, to say nothing of

an accurate representation of American clergy. It therefore became

necessary to seek lists of names and addresses of clergy from the

individual dioceses and religious communities that had fallen into

the sample. Generally speaking, the cooperation of dioceses and

religious orders was excellent, although in some instances this co-

operation required that the institution revise its own somewhat out-

dated lists.
4
Compiling an accurate list of the potential respondents

and drawing the sample from that list caused a three-month delay in

mailing the main questionnaires to active priests; the first wave went

out in December, 1969, and the second wave in early 1970. The re-

signee questionnaire did not have its first mailing until July, 1970. The

response was excellent for a mail survey of the present kind but the

inevitable delays in the data-collection process prolonged the field

work into the end of the summer of 1970.

3. Data Processing

Preparation of the data for analysis began almost as soon as ques-

tionnaires arrived in NORC's mailroom. We presume that the reader
of the present report is not interested in the mysteries of "editing,"

"coding," and "card punching." It is sufficient to say that the trans-

fer of answers from the questionnaires of over 6,000 respondents to

IBM cards (fourteen for each respondent) and thence to magnetic

tapes and to discs is an immense, complicated, and time-consuming

task in which many things can go wrong and almost always do.

4. Construction of the Indices

The fourteen decks of IBM cards contained over six hundred items

to which the members of the sample had responded. Many of these

items were designed in such a manner that they could be combined

into indices which would represent not so much single answers as

response patterns which, in their turn, would correspond to attitud-

inal or behavioral constellations. While many items were written

with an a priori assumption that they would highly correlate with one

4
All human organizations have a difficult time keeping accurate lists of the names

and addresses of their members. One university that we know of does not even at

the present time have a complete list of all its faculty members.

30



another and thus become part of the indices, it was still necessary to

establish empirically that such correlations existed. September,

October, and November of 1970 were devoted to this task. More

than six hundred items in the questionnaire were reduced through

the construction of indices to approximately two hundred variables.

5. Analysis and Preparation of the Report

The fall and winter of 1970-71 were devoted to the actual analysis

of the data in preparation for the writing of this report. The method

of analysis and presentation will be described in the next main sec-

tion of this chapter.

6. Review of the Report

As the first draft of the chapters emerged from NORC's steno pool,

they were reviewed first by members of the study staff and then by

senior colleagues at NORC, in particular Paul B. Sheatsley and Joe L.

Spaeth. This review process was extremely important in the prepara-

tion of this report because it provided members of the study staff with

the perspective on their work that can frequently be lost during long

immersion in the project. It also guaranteed them that whatever

biases of their own may have crept into their analysis could be taken

into account and eliminated.

A word must be said on the subject of "bias." In the language of

controversy, an "objective" researcher is one whose findings agree

with what the controversialists hope research will discover, and a

"biased" researcher is one whose findings disagree with whatthecon-

troversialists hope will be reported. In fact, there is no such thing as

an unbiased researcher, particularly in the controversial and delicate

matters under study in the present project. The wise social re-

searcher does not pretend that he does not have feelings, hopes,

inclinations, and expectations of his own, frequently rooted in the

very depths of his personality. However, his training as a researcher

teaches him how to take these biases into account in order to make

sure that they do not interfere with the competency of his analysis.

He also realizes that his reputation as a social scientist depends to a

considerable extent on his ability to neutralize his own biases. In

addition, if he is part of a major social science research center, he

and his colleagues at the center realize that their collective reputa-

tion depends on the objectivity of his analysis.

31



The various members of the staff for this study of the life and the

ministry of the priesthood have their own biases, ambivalencies,

ambiguities, and uncertainties. In some instances, these cancel out

one another. In other instances, however, the advice and counsel of

their non-Catholic colleagues has been vigorously sought with the

precise purpose of making the present report as professionally com-

petent as possible. We are therefore confident that the present
volume is as unbiased as the collective efforts of a major social sci-

ence center with thirty years of history behind it could possibly

guarantee.

32



II

Chapter Summaries for American Priests

Each chapter in the report was basically divided into a descriptive

and an analytic section, although in a few chapters these sections

were combined. Starting with Chapter 3, summaries of the contents

of each section were presented in the form of responses to a series

of hypothetical questions, which are given below.

Chapter 3—Education and Vocation Decision among the Clergy

Descriptive and Analytic Sections:

1. Is it true that most American priests have entered the seminary

in early adolescence with practically no social experience with

women

?

About three-fifths of the American priests had at least

graduated from high school before entering the seminary. The

majority of priests had some dating experience, and one-quarter

of those fifty-five and under had dated two or three times a month

or more before they entered the seminary.

2. Are resigned priests likely to have more education than those

who remain in the priesthood

?

Those who have already left the

priesthood have had more advanced education than those who

remain in it, a phenomenon that cannot be explained by age. How-

ever, the amount of advanced education does not predict a propen-

sity to plan to leave the priesthood among those who are presently

active priests.

3. What do priests think of their seminary experience

?

Most

priests think that the seminary prepared them at least moderately

well for their work as priests, though substantial majorities are

critical of the seminaries in a number of important matters. There is

widespread agreement in all age groups that the seminary failed

to prepare them for the task of dealing with people.

4. Does the age at which a young man entered the seminary
,
or

the dating experience he had before he entered
,
predict any of the

attitudes and behavior he exhibits in later life

?

There is no correla-

tion between age at entry and any of the subsequent variables con-

sidered in our study, and there is only one moderate correlation

between dating experience and subsequent attitudes and behavior.

33



Chapter 4—The Personality of the Priest

Descriptive Section:

1. Has the priesthood interfered with the emotional development

of the men who have entered it? There is no evidence to support

such a conclusion. Young priests score higher on measures of self-

actualization than college students and compare favorably with

Peace Corps volunteers. Might these younger clergy have had even

more development toward self-actualization if they had not entered

the priesthood? In the absence of data collected on them before

they entered the seminary it is impossible to answer this question.

2. Have the "self-actualizers" left the priesthood
, as has been

asserted in the popular press? Not all those who have left have high

scores on self-actualization and not all those who have high self-

actualization scores have left. There are many with rather low scores

on the POI who have departed from the priesthood and many with

rather high scores who are still in it. However, it must still be said,

subject to further analysis, that there is a correlation between a high

score on the inner-directed scale and resignations from the priest-

hood even when a comparison is made between resignees and

actives in their own age category.

3. Are there certain special emotional problems in the priest-

hood? Insofar as the rather limited analysis in this report can testify,

the principal emotional problems that are distinctive to the priest

are the inability to be sensitive to one's own needs and feelings and

particularly the capacity to accept one's own aggressive impulses.

4. Are there certain special strengths in the personalities of

priests? One very definite strength is apparently the priest's capacity

to take a constructive view of the nature of man. In addition, priests

demonstrate relative strength in their ability to affirm their own self-

worth and to accept themselves for what they are in spite of weak-

nesses and deficiencies.

5. Do priests have excessively dependent personalities? We could

find no evidence of excessive dependency among priests when we

compared priests forty-five and under with test norms (leaving aside

the moot point of whether test scores can be expected to decline

with age). When mean scores of priests of the same age as the

normative groups were compared with the mean norms, there were

only minor differences, most of which suggest that, if anything, the

problem of the priest is lack of a capacity to cope with aggressive

feelings rather than an excessive need for dependency.

34



6. Do the data in this chapter indicate that priests are the kind of

men who can provide confident and vigorous leadership in times of

crisis and change

?

Between one-tenth and one-fifth of the clergy

could be said to be "self-actualized" persons, a proportion that is

probably not very different from that to be found in the general

American population of college-educated males. The clergy are not

neurotic misfits, but neither by and large do they seem to be the kind

of men who would make charismatic leaders.

7. Are the resignees more self-actualized than those who remain

in the priesthood

?

When age is held constant, the scores on every

one of the personality subscales are slightly higher for the resigned

priests than they are for active priests. However, there is some

tendency for the resigned priests to be hyper-self-actualized and the

active priests to be hypo-self-actualized; that is, some of the former

display an abnormal need for independence and some of the latter

tend to display an abnormal lack of independence.

8. What are the factors in the background and training of a priest

that lead to the development of the self-actualizing personality and

what are the factors that impede such development

?

For the answers

to these questions, it is necessary to turn to the second section of this

chapter to determine what factors correlate with the self-actualizing

priestly personality.

9. Did seminary training cause a diminution of the capacity of

priests to have intimate friendships? It would be hard on the basis

of our data to respond in the affirmative to this question. While the

mean score of the Catholic clergy on capacity for intimate contact is

only somewhat above that of the non-self-actualized group, so are

the mean scores of every comparison group on which we have data;

and the mean score of young priests is actually higher than that of

young Catholics in colleges.

Analytic Section:

1. Is it true that those who entered the seminary later or who had

more education since ordination are more likely to be emotionally

mature? There is no evidence in our data to support either of these

possibilities.

2. Did the priesthood attract young men whose social class
,

family background
,
or childhood experiences made them less likely

to be autonomous than the typical American male? There is no evi-

dence in our data that this has occurred.

35



Chapter 5—The Spiritual Life of Priests

Descriptive and Analytic Sections:

1. Do priests still pray

?

Most priests still pray, though the young

pray less than the old, a phenomenon that may have been true of the

young at any time in the history of the priesthood and not unique to

the present time. (Table 5.2)

2. Do most priests still say the breviary

?

Only about two-fifths

of them still honor the complete obligation, with the older priests

more likely to do so than the younger.

3. Do priests still have religious experiences of mystical or quasi-

mystical contact with God

?

More than half report a frequent sense

of being in the presence of God. This religious experience is only

slightly related to age and seems fairly equally distributed in all

groups of the clergy, save for those who come from tense family

backgrounds.

4. Is there a relationship between frequency of prayer and fre-

quency of mystical experience? Given the fact that one would expect

these two variables to be closely related, it is surprising to report

that the positive correlation is only a modest .29. In other words,

only about 9 per cent of the variance in the frequency of mystical

experience can be explained by the frequency of prayer. The tradi-

tional theological position that mysticism is a "given" which cannot

be directly pursued receives some confirmation from this finding.

Chapter 6—Attitudes and Values among the Catholic Clergy

Descriptive Section:

1. Are the clergy turning away from orthodox Catholicism? There

is little evidence that doctrinal orthodoxy is being abandoned by

priests, though some formulations are less enthusiastically endorsed

by the younger clergy. What seems to be happening, rather, is a

turn toward new emphases, with the traditional ones being main-

tained, though to a lesser extent among the younger clergy. (Table

6.5)

2. Is there a perception of confusion and uncertainty within the

Church? There is some feeling of confusion and uncertainty—per-
ceived more by the bishops than by the clergy. But it would not be

appropriate to say that anomie is seen as being widespread in the

Church.

36



3. Is support for the Church's position on sexual morality deteri-

orating? There seems little reason to doubt that support among the

clergy for the Church's teaching on birth control and divorce is wan-

ing. The change in birth control attitudes can be documented by our

data, and the position on divorce is remarkedly different from the

traditional one. On the other hand, there is little evidence of a

change in position on either premarital sex or abortion, though the

younger clergy are somewhat more sympathetic to premarital sex

and a substantial segment of priests think that the abortion issue

ought to be carefully investigated.

4. Did the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae obtain the consent of

the majority of the American priests? The overwhelming evidence is

that it did not. (Table 6.17)

5. Are bishops more "conservative" than their priests? Insofar as

the labels "conservative" and "liberal" have any meaning at all, we

can say that on matters of religious attitudes and sexual morality,

bishops tend to be even more "conservative" than the clergy over

fifty-five, while on matters of ecumenism and social action, bishops

tend to be even more "liberal" than the clergy under thirty-six.

(Table 6.31)

Analytic Section:

1. Is there a generation gap among the clergy? If by generation

gap one means a clean break that divides the clergy into two sepa-

rate groups, there is no such gap. What we find, rather, is a genera-

tion "slope" with each ten-year age category being more "modern"

in its religious attitudes and more "liberal" in its sexual morality than

its immediate elders. If one just compares those under thirty-six

with those over fifty-five, there is obviously a gap and not a slope,

but the priesthood as it exists in reality is not made up of just these

two groups.

2. Is age by itself the main cause of attitudinal differences among

the clergy? We are not able to explain variation on the "modern"
values index by demographic, educational, or socioeconomic back-

grounds. Hence, insofar as our measures allow us to find other

explanations besides age, we must say that age seems to be the

principal cause of differing attitudes. Some explanation can be

found in the greater tendency to "inner-directedness" among the

young but the direct path between age and "modern" values is

—.50, while the indirect path through "inner-directedness" is only

37



—.10. Whether the more conservative attitudes of older priests

result from growing old biologically or from different kinds of

cultural and generational experiences is not a question that we can

answer with certainty from our data. However, if the former ex-

planation is the case, one would then predict that as they grow older,

the young clergy will assume the same attitudes that the old have

now. As this seems rather unlikely, the second explanation may

well be preferable.

Chapter 7—Structure and Power in the Life of a Priest

Descriptive Section:

1. Do priests want to abolish the institution of a strong bishop?

All the evidence is that they do not. Even the younger priests cast a

majority vote for a strong bishop. (Table 7.3)

2. Do the clergy want a considerable decentralization of power

and decision-making influence in the Church? There can be very

little doubt that they do. Hence, one must conclude that priests

view ecclesiastical power as an expandable rather than a fixed pie

—

giving someone a larger piece does not mean that others must get

smaller pieces.

3. What is the most popular new locus of power? The priests'

senate seems to be the one most frequently mentioned.

4. What is the bishops' view of the centralization of power? On

a theoretical level, some bishops, who are aware of their own very

great power, are apparently willing to agree with decentralization of

decision-making. However, on the specific topics considered, there

is little change from the proportion describing the actual centraliza-

tion to the proportion describing what might be an ideal centraliza-

tion. In practice, then, bishops do not seem to be greatly dissatisfied

with the way decisions are made in the Church.

5. Is there serious conflict potential between bishops and priests?

Given a situation where there is disagreement between leadership and

followers on both the practical distribution of power and the help-

fulness of structural reform, in which there is in fact a heavy con-

centration of power in the hands of leadership, and finally in which

there seems to be a widespread tendency to ignore unpopular reg-

ulations, it would be a mistake not to see considerable potential for

serious conflict.

38



6. Is there any particular institution that might be the subject of

conflict? The priests' senate seems to be a highly controversial in-

stitution. Priests think it has little power and ought to have more;

bishops as a group seem to think that it has quite enough power.

7. Is there a tendency for priests to ignore rules they don't like?

At least on liturgical matters, there does seem to be such a tendency.

8. What reforms in the Church are most popular with priests?

A married diaconate is the change that receives the most support;

70 per cent or more of the priests also favor an impartial system of

appeals, some married priests, election of the Pope by bishops, and

election of bishops by priests. (Table 7-13)

9. Are priests in favor of closing Catholic schools? They are not.

A very large majority do not think this would be a helpful change.

Even among the younger clergy, there is majority support for

parochial schools.

Analytic Section:

1. Who are most likely to be dissatisfied with the present state of

Church structure? The young, those from tense families, those with

inner-directed personalities, those with low scores on religious ex-

perience, and those with "modern" religious values are the ones

most likely to be dissatisfied.

2. Is it merely the fact of being young that makes the young un-

happy with the power and structural situation? The relationship

between youth and dissatisfaction seems to be the result of different

attitudes and values about what the Church and religion are.

3. Does the dissatisfaction of the young with the distribution of

power indicate trouble for the Church? It apparently does, precisely

because the difference seems to be rooted in quite different values

about the nature of the Church and the nature of Christianity. What

we are witnessing is not merely a disagreement between those who

have power and those who do not, but a disagreement among those

with opposing ideologies about the nature of the reality whose

power structure is the subject of disagreement. Power conflicts that

are rooted in ideological differences tend to be much more serious

than power conflicts among those who share the same ideologies.

39



Chapter 8—The Clerical Culture

Descriptive Section:

1. Is there a "clerical culture?" In the strict sense of the word, of

course there is not, though no research was required to demonstrate

this. Nevertheless, there is in our data considerable evidence to

indicate strong tendencies in the direction of something that would

resemble a "clerical culture." Priests are not cut off or isolated from

the laity the way real subcultures are isolated from main cultures.

Nevertheless, there is a strong tendency among the clergy to asso-

ciate in their friendship and recreational patterns with other clergy

—

a tendency that is reinforced by the fact that most clergy live in

houses with other clergy.

2. Are priests without friends? Some certainly are and others may

very well be, but most priests see themselves as having close personal

friends, and a substantial proportion see themselves as having many

such friends, with some even among the laity. It would be a mistake

to think of the clergy as entirely composed of a group of men who

think of themselves as lonely and isolated, although, as we shall see,

loneliness is a serious problem for some priests.

3. Are the priests' relationships within the "clerical culture"

intolerable? Insofar as one can judge from information on priests'

relationships with those with whom they live and their attitudes

toward the place where they live, one must respond "no" to this

question. Very small proportions, for example, report bad relation-

ships with the pastor or the person in charge of the house where they

live, but substantial proportions report "excellent" relationships with

these ecclesiastical superiors. It is clearly not our intention to suggest

that there is no room for improvement in the residential relationships

of the clergy. Nevertheless, the fact that approximately three-

quarters of the priests in the country consider the place where they

live to be a "home" raises the question of whether one could reason-

ably expect that proportion to go much higher, given the imperfec-

tion of the human condition.

4. Is there pressure toward change in the patterns of the so-called

"clerical culture?" There apparently is such pressure building up

among the younger clergy, who are more likely both to have friends

who are not priests and to be dissatisfied with the residential situa-

tion in which they find themselves. Nevertheless, a majority of the

younger priests still think of the residence in which they live as a

40



place where they can be themselves, relax, or entertain. They also

report that some of their most frequent associations with close

friends are with other priests. If the so-called "clerical culture"

—

understood here as a strong tendency for priests to associate with

other priests— is breaking up, then, at least by the measures available
in this chapter, it is breaking up slowly.

Analytic Section:

What priests are most likely to feel that the relationships with the

colleagues with whom they live are unsatisfactory? The young are

more likely to be dissatisfied with their colleague relationships than

the old, but age explains only 5 per cent of the variance in satisfac-

tion with colleague relationships.

Chapter 9—The Work of Priests

Descriptive Section:

1. How do Catholic priests evaluate themselves in comparison

with other professionals? Priests evaluate themselves quite highly in

comparison with other professionals, although the smallest majority

is found among those who think that the amount of autonomy which

priests have in decision-making is comparable to the amount which

other professionals have. (Table 9.11)

2. Do priests work hard? This is an extremely difficult question

to answer since it is practically impossible to define what hard work

is, but at least they work moderately long hours, with the mean hours

per week in excess of 50.

3. Do priests get satisfaction out of their work? Religious priests

are more satisfied with their jobs than diocesan priests; and among

diocesan priests, the lowest level of job satisfaction is found among

associate pastors, who are lower even than comparison groups in

the American population. Since the associate pastors represent

about half of the priests thirty-five and under and a quarter of the

priests between thirty-six and forty-five, the fact that their job

satisfaction is even lower than that of unskilled manual workers rep-

resents an extremely serious problem for the clergy as a profession.

(Table 9.9)

4. Are priests interested in maintaining their professional skills?

The majority of priests want updating in theological and religious

studies, and a fairly good proportion keep in touch with the best in

periodical and scholarly literature. Not all priests read, of course;

41



nowhere near a majority read the most serious journals such as

Concilium or Theological Studies
,
but there is still considerable evi-

dence that many priests do make serious efforts to stay well informed

in the areas of their professional responsibility.

Analytic Section:

1 . Which priests are most likely to be satisfied in their work

?

Even

though it is hard to explain satisfaction, those most likely to be

favorably disposed toward their profession are the older priests,

those with more "traditional" values, those who have had mystical

experiences, those who come from less tense families, and those

who have inner-directed personalities.

2. Is dissatisfaction in the priesthood caused by long work hours

?

On the contrary, the opposite seems to be the case. There is a posi-

tive relationship between number of hours worked and the feeling

that one's talent is being used.

3. Are there any important differences between religious and

diocesan priests? Although there is a somewhat higher level of work

satisfaction among the religious, this difference produced a correla-

tion of only .12. On the other variables used in our causal model, no

differences even this large emerged.

4. Is work satisfaction more likely in small dioceses or commu-

nities than in large? We could discover no relationship of this kind.

Chapter 10—Satisfactions and Frustrations in the Priesthood

Descriptive Section:

1. What are the principal satisfactions in the life of the priest?

Presiding over the liturgy, working with people, and being part of a

Christian community seem to be the principal sources of satisfaction.

(Table 10.4)

2. What are the principal problems of the priesthood? Authority

is the most frequently mentioned problem, with the difficulty of

reaching people, loneliness, relations with superiors, and celibacy

coming next. (Table 10.6)

Analytic Section:

1. Why do some men experience more loneliness than others?

Young priests are more lonely than older priests, and those with less

work satisfaction are more lonely than those with high work satis-

42



faction, but a good deal of the loneliness must still be considered

unexplained.

2. Does what we know of the personality of priests from our

personality scales enable us to explain much of the loneliness? It

does not.

3. If priests liked their work better, would they be less lonely?

There is only a relatively moderate net effect of work satisfaction on

loneliness, suggesting that an increase in the amount of work satisfac-

tion would decrease the amount of loneliness only to a very moder-

ate extent.

4. Does difficulty with authority contribute to loneliness? It is

impossible to postulate one as a cause of the other, but when the

mutual influence of loneliness and problems with authority are held

constant, loneliness contributes much more of an explanation to the

desire to marry than does authority.

Chapter 77

—

The Morale of the Clergy

Descriptive Section:

1. Are priests unhappy? Quite the contrary, they seem to be

happier than comparable groups of men—at least insofar as happi-
ness is measured by our indicators of psychological well-being.

(Table 11.3)

2. Is the decision to resign preceded by a decline in psychological

well-being and followed by an increase in it? This pattern does

indeed seem to occur, at least insofar as our "dummy" model is

able to indicate. There is also some evidence of a return to more

normal levels of psychological well-being several years after resigna-

tion.

3. Are resigned priests less happy than those who remain in the

priesthood? Again, insofar as our indicators are valid measures, they

are not any less happy, and indeed are more happy than typical

American males of the same educational background and age.

Analytic Section:

1. Why are some priests happy and others not happy? Religious

experience, work satisfaction, and favorable comparisons with other

professionals seem to be the principal components of high morale

for priests. Thus, if a priest feels that he is in contact with God

43



and likes his work, then his morale "balance of payments" is likely

to be very satisfactory.

2. Are young priests more or less happy than older priests?

Younger priests have both higher positive affect and higher negative

affect but the "balance of payments" for both young and old is such

that there is no correlation between the affect balance scale and age.

3. Is loneliness an important cause of low morale among priests?

It appears to be. When all other variables are held constant, the

"pure" contribution of loneliness to negative affect explains 7 per

cent of the variance.

Chapter 12—The Celibacy Issue

Descriptive Section:

1. Is there a strong desire among the Roman Catholic clergy to

marry? The answer to this question is in the negative. Only about

one-fifth of the diocesan priests and one-tenth of the religious priests

say that they would either certainly or probably marry if they could.

Even among those under thirty-six, two-thirds indicate that they

would not either certainly or probably marry if they could do so.

(Table 12.4)

2. Do priests strongly support and expect change in the celibacy

regulations? The answer to this question is a clear affirmative. More

than half the priests are at least somewhat in favor of the change,

and approximately three-fifths expect the change. Three-quarters of

those expecting a change think it will occur within the next decade.

(Table 12.2)

3. Is the celibate state valued by the Catholic clergy? Here the

answer must be "yes." The overwhelming majority of priests see it

as an advantage in their work and a considerable proportion also see

it as an advantage for having fuller relationships with other people.

The younger clergy, who see more disadvantages in celibacy and are

more strongly in favor of a change, are less likely to endorse some of

the reasons advanced for celibacy. Nevertheless, they tend to be in

agreement with their older colleagues on the fundamental advantage

of celibacy in assisting the priest in his work. (Table 12.5)

4. If most priests would not marry and if most see a definite ad-

vantage in celibacy
,
why is there support for a change? Apparently,

many of those who support a change do so because they are not

convinced that celibacy is essential to the priesthood and because

44



they think that celibacy can be harmful for some priests and is keep-

ing many men out of the priesthood. In other words, a change in the

celibacy regulation is perceived as being desirable for the Church, if

not necessarily desirable for oneself.

5. Are substantial numbers of priests actively engaged in court-

ship in preparation for marriage when the celibacy regulation is

changed? There is no evidence presently that they are.

Analytic Section:

What are the principal explanations for the desire of some priests

to marry? Loneliness and youthfulness both separately and in com-

bination provide us with a substantial amount of the explanation for

the desire to marry. Values, personality, and lack of work satisfaction

are also factors to be considered.

Chapter 13—Future Plans

Descriptive Section:

1. Is the present resignation rate among priests likely to persist?

There is no evidence in the present data to suggest that at least on a

national level resignation rates are likely to decline.

2. How many more priests are likely to resign? If only that 3 per

cent who responded to our questionnaire by saying that they were

probably or definitely going to leave should in fact resign, there will

be 2,000 more resignees in the reasonably near future. If substantial

numbers of those who are uncertain, or even who say they probably

will not leave, should in fact decide to resign, the numbers could be

very much higher. (Table 13.2)

3. Are many priests shaken by the resignations of their friends?

It seems obvious that many are and that a substantial number of

American priests have been forced to rethink their position in the

priesthood because of the rising resignation rates.

4. Why do men resign from the priesthood? The most frequently

mentioned reason is the desire to marry. However, various aspects of

frustration in the priestly work in combination are mentioned even

more frequently than the desire to marry. (Table 13.7)

5. Why do men stay in the priesthood? The principal reasons for

staying are a sense of vocation and happiness in the work. Younger

priests also mention a desire to give witness to Christ and to reform

the structures of the Church.

45



Analytic Section:

1. What is the explanation of future plans with regard to staying

in or leaving the priesthood

?

There is no single explanation, but the

desire to marry is the strongest predictor of plans to leave, in part

because it acts as a channel for other causes.

2. What, then, is the explanation of priests' desiring to marry

?

There are a number of causes, but the principal one appears to be

the loneliness that some men experience in the priesthood.

3. Why are young priests more likely than old to think of resign-

ing? Most of this relationship can be explained by different personal-

ities, different religious values, a higher level of loneliness, and a

greater desire to marry.

4. How could resignation rates be lowered? It is not our purpose

to make recommendations, but in terms of the statistics in our model,

a notable reduction in the rate would occur if there were less of a

desire to marry and less loneliness.

Chapter 14—Recruiting for the Priesthood

Descriptive and Analytic Sections:

1. Has there been a decline in enthusiasm for encouraging voca-

tions to the priesthood? There has been a considerable decline over

the last four or five years, though few priests actively discourage

young men from seeking the priesthood. Instead, they encourage

them less vigorously or let them make up their own minds. (Table

14.5)

2. Are there some particular groups of priests who are less likely

to encourage priestly vocations? The young and those with "mod-

ern" values are less likely to encourage young men to become

priests, while those who have had religious experiences, like their

work, and evaluate themselves highly in comparison with other pro-

fessionals are more likely to do so. But the relationships are not

strong and one must conclude that a lowering of enthusiasm for

recruiting is widespread among all categories of the clergy.

Chapter 15—A Look at the Resignees

1. Are the resignees "angry" at the Church? Some certainly are,

as a reading of the responses to the open-ended questions would

46



make clear. But many others are not. Rather they seem to have

mixed emotions about the Church, their experiences in it, the treat-

ment they received at resignation, and their present relationship to it.

2. Why did they leave the priesthood? They left because they

found difficulties with the structure of the Church and the work they

were doing as priests and because they wanted to get married.

(Table 15.8)

3. Does resignation indicate a problem of "faith?" The "faith"

issue is one that is clearly expressed by only a small minority—less
than one-fifth. For another two-fifths, it does not seem to be a

serious problem. The present state of our analysis does not enable

us to make a judgment about the "faith" of the ambivalent two-

fifths. However, there is nothing in their explicit testimony to indi-

cate that they have "lost the faith."

4. Are the resignees happy with their decision? Eighty-six per

cent say they are "very satisfied" with their decision to leave and this

proportion remains roughly constant, no matter how many years

intervene since resignation.

5. What sort of work are the resignees doing? Most seem to be

engaged in some sort of teaching or social service occupations.

About one-third make more than $12,000 a year.

6. Do resignees still consider themselves as part of the Church?

About two-fifths think of themselves as part of the official Church

and another two-fifths see themselves on the margin but still part of

the Church. Around two-fifths attend Mass every week.

7. Do many of them want to return to the active ministry? Only

about two-fifths seem interested in such a return, and many of these

apparently do not want to return to any sort of "full-time" priestly

work.

8. Do they still exercise the ministry? A minority do preside over

liturgical functions, but this decreases as the resignation event

recedes into the past.

9. Are their marriages unhappy? There seems to be a higher level

of tension in their marriages than in most American marriages, and

the tension increases with the passage of the years since resignation.

But the marriage companionship and sociability scores are also high.

There have been few divorces among the respondents. (Table 15.27)

47



10. What sort of changes do the resigned priests want to see in

the Church

?

The most frequently mentioned change was some sort

of reform of the ecclesiastical government structure. A change in the

law of celibacy was mentioned only one-third as often as govern-

mental change when the respondents were asked to choose only one

reform.

48



Tables

Table 5.2

SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES BY AGE

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests)

Spiritual Activity

Age

26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 55

Celebrate Mass every day 72 78 89 95

Read the Bible once a week or more 61 55 55 58

Pray or meditate privately every day

Feel that celebrating Mass is a very

38 42 53 69

important form of prayer and worship . . 88 90 93 96

TABLE 5.5

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES BY CLERICAL STATUS

(Per Cent Reporting Having Had Each Experience "Frequently"

During Past Two or Three Years)

Diocesan Religious

Religious Experience

Active Resigned

Bishops Priests Priests

Major

Supe-

riors

Active Resigned

Priests Priests

An overwhelming feeling

of being at one with

God or Christ 35 26 17 23 23 23

A sense of being in the

presence of God 75 56 37 56 56 42

A deep feeling of being

personally loved by

Christ here and now . . 63 47 30 46 47 32

A feeling of being afraid

of God 3 4 1 1 4 1

A feeling of being

tempted by the devil . 10 16 0 13 12 0

A feeling of being aban-

doned by God 1 2 0 0 1 1

49



LO

v£>

50



TABLE

6.5

—

Continued

51

Not

asked

of

resigned

priests.



TABLE 6.17

BIRTH CONTROL ATTITUDES BEFORE AND AFTER HUMANAE VITAE

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests)

Before Humanae Vitae

After Humanae Vitae

A B C D E F Other

A. All artificial contraception is morally

wrong because it is clearly forbid-

den by the natural law and by the

Church's teaching 27 4 3 1 4 0 1

B. It is not certain that all artificial

contraception is morally wrong; still,

the faithful are bound to follow the

guidance of the teaching of the

Church and avoid all methods of

artificial contraception 1 6 2 0 2 0 0

C. It is not certain that all artificial

contraception is morally wrong;

therefore, the faithful are morally

justified in using at leastsome meth-

ods of artificial contraception when

they have adequate reasons for

avoiding more children 0 18 14 1 0
D. There is no doubt that the responsi-

ble use of at least some methods of

artificial contraception is morally

acceptable, while the use of other

methods may be morally wrong . . 0 0 0 3 2 0 0

E. Judgment concerning the morality

of artificial contraception should be

left to the responsibly formed con-

sciences of the individuals involved 0 0 0 0 19 1 0

F. Given adequate reasons for avoid-

ing children, all methods of artificial

contraception are morally accept-

able 0 0 0 0 1 5 1

Other 0 0 0 0 0 0 2

Diagonal (no change) = 70
Above ("liberal" change) = 27
Below ("conservative" change) — 3

Total =100

52



TABLE

6.31

SOCIAL

ATTITUDES

BY

CLERICAL

STATUS

(Per

Cent)

53

Based

on

data

made

available

to

us

by

Sister

Marie

Augusta

Neal,

S.N.D.



TABLE 7.3

IDEAL DISTRIBUTION OF POWER IN DIOCESE, BY CLERICAL STATUS

(Per Cent Thinking Each Group Should Have "A Very Great Deal" or

"A Great Deal" of Influence in Determining Policies and

Actions in the Diocese)

Bishop

Auxiliary bishops

Chancery officials

Deans or vicars . .

Priests' senate . . .

Pastors

Other priests

Laity

Group

Diocesan Religious

Active

Bishops Priests

Major

Supe-

riors

Active

Priests

96 90 96 88

49 42 54 45

63 32 36 37

38 26 27 26

53 61 61 65

37 34 32 34

23 24 18 23

32 34 38 38

TABLE 7.13

REFORMS IN THE CHURCH, BY CLERICAL STATUS

(Per Cent Thinking Each Possible Change Would Help

"Very Much" or "Somewhat")

Diocesan Religious

Possible Change

Active

Bishops Priests

Major

Supe- Active

riors Priests

Associate pastors choosing to live where they

wish 9 41 25 36

All priests living in community when this is

possible 83 57 86 74

A parish lay advisory board having some say

in the transfer and selection of priests .... 21 46 58 56

Wider approval of household ministries,

"small group parishes within a parish," and

floating parishes 32 64 73 71

54



TABLE 7.13—Continued

Diocesan Religious

Possible Change

Bishops

Major

Active Supe-

Priests riors

Active

Priests

Elimination of Catholic school systems 0 20 9 17

Some priests holding secular jobs during the

week 16 46 41 48

A court of appeals for all members of the

Church distinct from the hierarchy guar-

anteeing them due process of law 58 78 81 75

Some married priests working in a variety of

ministries 39 70 59 69

Election of the Pope by the Synod of Bishops 43 70 72 69

Introduction of the married diaconate when-

ever and however the local church chooses 80 86 87 86

Election of bishops by the priests of the

diocese 24 70 68 74

Election of bishops by the priests, religious,

and laity of the diocese 24 65 64 69

TABLE 9.11

JOB REACTIONS BY AGE

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests)

Reactions

Age

26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 55

Would enter priesthood again 74 71 80 89

Feel talents are utilized "a great deal" 26 38 44 47

More or about the same as other professionals:

Depth of knowledge and skill 71 76 79 79

Autonomy to make decisions 45 52 65 68

Responsibility for an undertaking 64 71 79 83

Commitment to serving needs of people . . . 92 93 92 90

55



TABLE 9.9

WORK SATISFACTION BY CURRENT MAIN JOB

(Active Diocesan and Religious Priests)

Current Main Job Mean Scores

Writing and research 39.9

Major seminary work 39.8

University and college teaching 39.2

Publications, press 38.6

Educational administration 38.3

Campus ministry 38.2

Mass media 38.2

Retreat work, mission band 37.8

Religious administration 37.5

Diocesan administration 37.3

Counseling 37.2

Experimental ministry 36.8

Home missions 36.8
Further studies 36.6

Chancery 36.5

Institutional chaplaincies 36.5

Monastic observances 36.3

Social work 36.3

Military chaplaincies 36.2

High school and grade school teaching 35.1

Religious instruction 35.0

Parish work 34.7

Pious groups 34.2

33.6

TABLE 10.4

SOURCES OF SATISFACTION, BY AGE

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests Reporting That

Each Item Is of "Great Importance" As a Source of Satisfaction)

Item

Age

26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 55

Joy of administering the sacraments and pre-

siding over the liturgy 75 76 82 88

Respect that comes to the priestly office 8 17 24 42

Satisfaction in organizing and administering

work of the Church 18 25 33 47

56



TABLE 10.4—Continued

Item

Age

26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 55

Opportunity to exercise intellectual and crea-

tive abilities 61 56 49 44

Spiritual security that results from responding

to the divine call 19 34 53 73

Challenge of being the leader of the Christian

community 42 36 34 38

Engaging in efforts of social reform 29 22 19 17

Being part of a community of Christians who

are working together to share the good news

of the gospel 71 64 58 60

Opportunity to work with many people and be

a part of their lives 81 73 70 64

The well-being that comes from living the com-

mon life with like-minded confreres 42 41 47 62

TABLE 10.6

PROBLEMS IN THE PRIESTHOOD FOR SELF, BY AGE

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests Reporting

Each As "A Great Problem to Me Personally")

Problem

Age

26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 55

Lack of clear idea of what a priest is 9 8 4 2

Theological change in the concept of the priest-

hood 5 7 8 8

Absence of challenge in priestly work 10 10 5 3

The way authority is exercised in the Church . . 44 31 18 10

Relationships with superiors or pastor 22 14 7 5

Celibacy 18 15 8 3

Relevance of the work that priests do 18 12 5 3

Uncertainty about the future of the Church . .

.

10 9 8 7

Unrealistic demands and expectations of lay

people 8 7 6 5

Loneliness of priestly life 23 20 10 6

Too little work 3 4 3 4

Too much work 12 9 8 5

Conflict with parishioners or laity about issues

of the day 7 5 4 4

Lack of opportunity for personal fulfillment . . . 13 11 6 4

Difficulty of really reaching people today .... 23 17 15 9

57



TABLE 11.3

AFFECT SCALE SCORES OF PRIESTS AND COLLEGE-EDUCATED MALES,
BY AGE

(Mean Scores)

Age
Active

Priests

College-educated Males®

(Non-Priests)

Married Unmarried

26-35

Positive Affect Scale

3.7

(1 ,094)

3.4

(1,526)

3.2

(1 ,155)

2.7

(1/313)

3.7 —
(58)

3.5 —
(41)

3.2 —
(32)

3.2 —
(10)

36-45

46-55

Over 55

Total

26-35

3.4

(5,088)

3.5 3.2
b

(141) (20)

Negative Affect Scale

1.9

(1/094)

1.5

(1,526)

1.1

(1,155)

.7

(1/313)

2.6 —
(58)

2.2 —
(41)

1.3 —
(32)

1.9 —
(10)

36-45

46-55

Over 55

Total 1.0

(5,088)

2.2 2.8
b

(141) (20)

26-35

Affect Balance Scale

1.8

(1,094)

2.0

(1/526)

2.2

(1/155)

2.0

(1/313)

1.1 —
(58)

1.3 —
(41)

1.0

(32)

.3
—

(10)

36-45

46-55

Over 55

Total 2.4

(5,088)

1.3 .4
b

(141) (20)

a
Data from NORC Happiness Study, 1963.

b
Not enough cases for breakdown by age.

58



TABLE 12.4

FUTURE OF CELIBACY, BY AGE

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests)

Item

Age

26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 55

Fxpect change in law of celibacy 88 76 58 33

Expect change within 10 years
a

76 78 75 66

Would certainly or probably marry if celibacy

for priests became optional 33 24 13 4

Would certainly or probably transfer to a dio-

cese in order to marry 14 13 7 2

Agree somewhat or strongly that priests who

have resigned from the priesthood should be

invited to re-apply for permission to function

as priests again, whether they are married or

single 76 62 42 25

a Of those who expect change.

TABLE 12.2

ATTITUDE ON OPTIONAL CELIBACY, BY AGE

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests Giving Each Response

to the Statement, "Celibacy Should Be a Matter of Personal

Choice for Diocesan Priests")

Response

Age

26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 55

Agree strongly 61 43 25 10

Agree somewhat 23 24 20 11

Uncertain 4 8 10 8

Disagree somewhat 6 10 13 11

Disagree strongly 5 15 32 60

Total 99
a 100 100 100

a
Not 100 per cent because of rounding.

59



TABLE 12.5

ATTITUDES TOWARD VALUE OF CELIBACY, BY CLERICAL STATUS

(Per Cent Feeling that Celibacy is "Very Much" or "Somewhat"

of an Advantage for Each Aspect)

Diocesan Religious

Aspect Major

Active Supe-

Bishops Priests riors

Active

Priests

For doing my work better 96 78 90 85

For my personal growth and development . . 82 52 68 62

For the development of my love of God . .

.

89 56 77 70

For relating more fully to other people 86 56 72 68

TABLE 13.2

FUTURE PLANS IN THE PRIESTHOOD, BY AGE

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests)

Future Plans in

the Priesthood

Age

26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 55

Definitely will not leave 25 44 71 92

Probably will not leave 53 40 22 7

Uncertain 17 11 5 1

Probably will leave 3 3 1 0

Definitely decided to leave 2 2 0 0

Total 100 100 99
a 100

a
Not 100 per cent because of rounding.

60



TABLE 13.7

REASONS FOR LEAVING THE PRIESTHOOD, BY
CLERICAL STATUS

(Per Cent Giving Each As First or Second Most
Important Reason)

Reason

Diocesan Religious

Active Resigned Active Resigned

Priests
11

Priests Priests
11

Priests

Desire to marry

Personal development and growth . .

.

No longer believe it is one's vocation

51

18

10

44

27

7

44

36

18

44

25

15

Can no longer live within the struc-

ture of the Church as a priest

Emotional problems make a change

necessary

No longer get the satisfaction there

used to be from being a priest

No longer agree with some of the

ethical and moral teachings of the

Church

Talents are not being used sufficiently

34

9

14

7

13

26 22 28

9 12 13

3 11 4

19 5 14

6 6 4

The work of a churchman seems ir-

relevant

The Church is not facing the relevant

questions of the day

Other

Total
b

10

12

22

200

8 7

18

33

200

20

19

200

6

19

28

200

a Of those uncertain, probable, or definite about leaving
the priesthood.

b
Totals equal 200 per cent because of combined categories.

61



TABLE 14.5

VOCATIONAL RECRUITING ATTITUDES FOUR OR FIVE YEARS AGO
AND TODAY

(Per Cent of Active Diocesan and Religious Priests)

Four or Five Years Ago

A

A. I actively encourage boys to enter the seminary

or novitiate, since I see the priesthood as a

very rewarding vocation

B. I encourage boys but advise them about the

uncertainties surrounding the role of the priest

today

C. I neither discourage nor encourage boys, but

allow them to make up their own minds ....

D. Abstracting from their personal qualities, I

tend to discourage boys from entering now

and advise them to wait until the future is

more certain

Other

29

18

12

1

0

Today

BCD Other

110 0

9 22 0 0

5 19 0 0

110 0
0 0 0 2

Diagonal (no change) = 59
Above (more encouragement) = 4

Below (less encouragement) = 38

Total = 101 a

a Not 100 per cent because of rounding.

62



TABLE 15.8

REASONS FOR LEAVING THE MINISTRY

Per Cent

Reason "Very Important for Me"

Bad relations with superiors 14

Desire to marry 47

Church was not facing the relevant problems of the

day 39

Emotional problems made change necessary 17

Conflict with parishioners, or laity 1

No longer believed it was my vocation 26

Attracted to other work 8

Could no longer live within the structure of the

institutional Church as a priest 53

Could no longer agree with some of the ethical and

moral teaching of the Church 35

No longer got the satisfaction there used to be from

being a priest 14

The work of a priest seemed irrelevant 21

Personal growth and development 46

Could no longer agree with some of the theological

teaching of the Church 29

Talents were not being used sufficiently 23

TABLE 15.27

MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BALANCE SCALE SCORES OF RESIGNED

PRIESTS AND COLLEGE-EDUCATED MALES

Mean Scores

Resigned priests (by year of resignation):

1970 6.9

1969 6.6

1968 6.2

1967 5.8

1966 4.9

1964-65 5.0

Total 6.1

College-educated males (by age):
a

26-35 5.5

36-45 5.4

46-55 6.4

Data from NORC Happiness Study, 1963.

63



IV

Summary and Conclusion

We now turn to an evaluation of the "assets" and "liabilities" of
the Catholic priesthood in the United States insofar as these can be

determined by our research.
1

It must be emphasized that this assess-

ment is made from a sociological and not a religious perspective.

1. There is no evidence in our research that Catholic priests are

deficient in emotional maturity when compared with other groups in

American society.

2. Priests maintain a high degree of personal morale, higher in

fact than college-educated males in the same age categories.

3. No evidence could be found that either early entry into the

seminary or dating experience affected either emotional maturation

or personal morale among the clergy.

4. Most priests engage in some form of regular prayer, and a

substantial proportion have had frequent religious experiences of

union with the object of that prayer.

5. There is a fundamental acceptance by priests of the basic

religious values to which the Church is officially committed, though

there are some differences in the formulations according to which

these values are expressed.

6. On certain social and racial matters, priests are more "liberal"

than a sample of laity; and bishops are more "liberal" than priests.

It therefore seems that one cannot assert that priests are lacking in

social conscience.

7. There is support for ecumenism among the Catholic clergy and

considerable involvement in ecumenical activity.

8. There is an acceptance among practically all priests of the

bishops as the principal leader and decision-maker in the diocese.

9. Most priests feel that they have close friends, that the place

where they live is "home," and that their relationships with their

colleagues are adequate, although not always excellent.

1 The reader may now wish to reread the summary questions and responses.

64



10. Priests work moderately long hours, evaluate themselves quite

favorably in comparison with other professionals, enjoy an adequate

(though not spectacular) level of job satisfaction, are inclined to

pursue a good deal of professional reading, and are committed to

the need for more professional training.

11. A large majority of the clergy say that if they had the choice

to make again, they would enter the priesthood.

12. While there is a moderate correlation between inner-

directedness and inclination to leave, there is no evidence of a

massive exodus of the best educated and most mature of the clergy.

On the contrary, our data would indicate that such an exodus is not

occurring.

On the other hand, there are serious problems facing the priest-

hood.

1. Large numbers of priests are dissatisfied with the way the

ecclesiastical structure is shaped and the way decision-making power

is distributed; but the leadership of the Church does not share this

dissatisfaction. Furthermore, it would appear that differences be-

tween younger and older priests on the distribution of power and

authority are rooted in ideological differences about the nature of

the Church and religion.

2. There are systematic and substantial differences between

bishops and priests on almost every matter we studied. In most

cases, the bishops hold different points of view and positions than

even the priests in their own age group. Given the disagreements

over power and over appropriate reforms in the Church, these sys-

tematic differences of conviction indicate a serious and potentially

dangerous "gap" between the priests and the hierarchy.

3. There are drastic differences between the priests and the

bishops on the subject of sexual morality. The official position of

the Church on birth control and divorce does not command majority

support among the priests, and there has been a deterioration of

support for the birth control position since the issuance of the

encyclical Humanae Vitae.

4. The majority of the priests do not accept the present position

on obligatory celibacy and expect that a change in the law is likely.

Even though celibacy is still valued, and most priests (four-fifths of

all, two-thirds of those under thirty-five) say that they would not be

likely to marry if celibacy became optional, there is still strong sup-

65



port for a modification of this regulation, particularly among those

under forty-five. The hierarchy, however, is strongly opposed to

such a change.

5. About 5 per cent of the diocesan priests resigned in the four

years from 1966 through 1969. Even though such a rate may not be

high in comparison with other professions, it is certainly high com-

pared to impressions about what the rate was in the past. While only

3 per cent of our sample of active priests said that they either cer-

tainly or probably would leave the priesthood, many more were

uncertain—particularly among the younger priests. The immediate
reason for thinking about resignation is apparently the desire to

marry, a desire which in its turn is partly based on the loneliness and

discouragement of the priestly life.

6. There has been a considerable decline in enthusiasm for voca-

tional recruiting, a phenomenon that may be far more serious than

the resignation rate.

7. The condition of the associate pastor is poor. Job satisfaction

in this group, for example, is generally lower than that of unskilled

workers. Associate pastors also do not feel that they have very good

relationships with their colleagues.

8. Finally, if one postulates for the clergy a high degree of self-

actualization and psychological well-being, then they clearly fail to

meet these standards. On the other hand, if NORC had been able to

administer questionnaires to the twelve apostles and the seventy-two

disciples, there is some reason to think on the basis of the evidence

in Scripture that they would not have scored extremely high on these

measures either.

A number of summary comments may also be made about the

resignees.

1. The two reasons for resignation mentioned most frequently as

'Very important" are inability to live within the structure of the

Church and the desire to marry. When forced to choose one recom-

mendation for change in the Church, only 15 per cent of the

resignees mentioned celibacy.

2. There is no evidence that the resignees regret their decision

or are unhappy in their present state. On the contrary, there is con-

siderable evidence that they are in a state of emotional euphoria,

characterized by what Karen Horney has described as a "binge of

66



health"—a binge that is understandable and probably inevitable in
their circumstances.

3. Resignees are apparently moderately successful in their occu-

pations, with one-third making over $12,000 a year.

4. At the present time the resignees have attitudes and values

that are sharply different from those of active priests, even those

active priests under thirty-five. They also recollect much less satis-

faction from priestly activities than do their opposite numbers

among the active clergy. On the other hand, they find more satis-

faction in their present career efforts than they did in their work as

priests.

5. About two-fifths of the resignees still consider themselves to

be Catholics and part of the official Church, another two-fifths are

on the margins of the Church, and the remaining one-fifth are no

longer affiliated with the Church. Apparently these proportions exist

at the time of resignation and do not change much over time. Thus,

one can tentatively conclude that the "faith" problem is overriding

only in about one-fifth of the resignations—though there may be
"faith confusion" among many of those on the margins of the official

Church.

6. Only a minority of resigned priests (36 per cent) definitely wish

to return to the priesthood. And only a minority of that minority

(10 per cent) seem interested in the exercise of full-time parochial

or teaching ministries.

7. In the years immediately after marriage, the marital adjustment

balance scores of married resignees are higher than those of the

typical American marriage of college-educated males, but the scores

become lower than those of the typical American marriage as the

years pass. However, there were almost no divorces or separations

recorded in our sample.

One observation should also be made of more general social sci-

ence interest. Two variables—family tension when one was growing
up and the experience of contact with the Deity—make relatively
small but consistent contributions to the explanation of priestly

attitudes and behavior. In the explanation of the propensity to stay

in the priesthood, they are almost as important as work satisfaction

and values, though obviously less important than such powerful pre-

dictors as age and desire to marry. The family-tension variable was

introduced into our research on the basis of theoretical considera-

67



tions drawn from the increasing literature on religious apostasy.

While the confirmation of the theory is not spectacular, confirmation

is still to be found. One would not, after all, expect family tension

to explain vast amounts of variance in values, morale, work satisfac-

tion, and future plans. That it explains anything at all is, from a

theoretical viewpoint, interesting and important.

That religious experience does contribute positively to work

satisfaction, morale, and the desire to remain a priest may not be

surprising to priests, but it is still a moderately important discovery

for the rather undeveloped tradition of empirical research on

mystical experiences.

As far as practical solutions are concerned, the two principal prob-

lems of priests that have emerged in this study—authority and
resignation—are relatively independent. Thus even though lone-
liness is a strong predictor of the desire to marry, and the wish to

marry is powerfully correlated with plans to leave, only 20 per cent

of the priests in our sample think that they would be likely to marry

even if they could. Loneliness is not such a problem for 80 per cent

of the priests as to make them want to get married and to think of

resigning as a result of that desire. On the other hand, problems with

authority and work satisfaction are not nearly as strong predictors of

the desire to marry as is loneliness.
2

Thus, if steps are taken to solve

the work and authority problems in the priesthood but the problem

of loneliness remains unresolved, the desire to marry and the re-

sultant resignation rate will fall only somewhat. If, on the other

hand, the loneliness problem can be solved the desire to marry and

the resignation rate will decline rather considerably, but the internal

conflict problems will remain substantially unresolved. Policy-

makers will apparently have to face the fact that conflict over author-

ity and feelings of loneliness may have to be approached as rather

distinct problems. Reducing conflict within the authority structure

may not reduce resignation rates very much; and reducing loneliness

is not likely to have too much impact on internal conflict. We can-

not make any absolute assertion about the relationship between

authority as a problem and loneliness as a problem since the logic

of our model does not permit us to postulate a causal relationship.

However, we can say that an improvement in work satisfaction

would not appreciably affect the loneliness problem. Where there

2 The net regression weights with desire to marry when the prior variables in our

model are included are —.08 for work satisfaction, .12 for authority as a problem,

and .33 for loneliness as a problem.

68



are obviously some priests for whom both authority and loneliness

are problems, there are others who have one problem or the other

but not both. One can conclude that no single solution will enable

the priesthood to cope effectively with both problems.

One way to conceptualize this situation is to say that in a hypo-

thetical model when all those who certainly or probably would

marry if they could have left the priesthood (which would mean

about one-fifth of all the priests and one-third of those under thirty-

five), the amount of loneliness in the priesthood would be substan-

tially diminished and resignation rates would become quite low once

again, but there would be little change in the conflict over authority.

To attempt one final summary of our findings, we have discovered

no evidence that the Catholic priesthood is in a state of collapse or

even near collapse. There are many strong and positive forces at

work in the priesthood, and it would be an unwise man who would

conclude on the basis of our data that it will disappear. On the

other hand, the priesthood has certain very serious problems, most

of them centering around the highly volatile subjects of power and

sex, which indicate trouble and conflict in the years ahead. Given

the uneven nature of the social scientific study of professions, no

certain answer can be given to the question of whether the Catholic

priesthood has more problems or less problems than other profes-

sions; and given the nature of it as a profession sui generis , such a

comparison would be of only marginal utility. And yet, by way of

drawing all strands together, one might come away from a considera-

tion of the NORC data with the conclusion that the priesthood has
both more assets and more problems than most other professions.

69



>

'

.



Report

Subcommittee on Psychology

Subcommittee members contributing to the report:

Eugene C. Kennedy, M.M., Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology

Loyola University of Chicago

Victor J. Heckler, Ph.D.

Research Associate in Psychology

Loyola University of Chicago

Summary: The Loyola Psychological

Study of the Ministry and

Life of the American

Priest

April, 1971



This document is a summary of a larger

report. It contains a brief resume of the

study, a summary of the methodology,

and two chapters of the report which

present an overview of the findings and

recommendations.



I

Brief Resume of the Results

The psychological research conducted through Loyola University

of Chicago for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops at-

tempted to answer the following question: What are American

priests like as persons? The intensive depth interviews which were

conducted with a cross-sectional sample of American priests reveal

them as neither sick nor mysterious. They are instead ordinary men

who reflect, through their own personal experiences, situational

challenges, and professional problems, the common difficulties of

the American male population from which they largely come. In

other words, American priests emerge psychologically like the rest of

men, with no extraordinary assets or liabilities of personality. In

terms of their unique ministerial calling they reflect the reactive pat-

terns of integration and adjustment that one would expect in any

group of similar men exposed to the same conditions of life and

training.

The psychological profile of American priests is not, therefore, a

perfect one; neither is it a sick one. The challenges and problems of

American priests, like those of most other men, can be described

better in the vocabulary of growth rather than that of psychopathol-

ogy. They reflect in their psychological growth the normal distribu-

tion of maturity. American priests, in other words, can, much like

other American men, be described according to a conceptual model

which enables us to see them at various stages of personal develop-

ment. For this study, American priests were placed into four main

groupings which represent levels of overall personal growth. These

categories and a brief description of each follow:

1) The Maldeveloped:

These are men, very few in number, who have had life-long

major psychological difficulties, typically related to their early

familial relationships and living conditions, which have inter-

fered in a serious way with their adjustment and occupational

effectiveness. An example is a person who, from earliest years,

has had recurrent emotional problems which have required

73



extended professional assistance and/or special treatment and

assignments.

2) The Underdeveloped:

These men, representing a large segment of American priests,

have not achieved the level of psychological growth
appro-

priate to their chronological age. They are, in one degree or

another, emotionally immature and they reflect this in many

ways in their personal and professional lives. The incomplete

growth evidenced in this group seems related to family experi-

ences, cultural pressures, and the fact that they have not
had

essential human experiences in full or free enough fashion.

These men have fundamental growth problems which no role

characteristics or societal expectations make up for. The chief

evidence of growth problems is in their interpersonal
relation-

ships, which are frequently distant, stylized, and
unrewarding.

They have major problems with psychological closeness;
as a

result, much of their work with people is a source of conflict

and uneasiness for them. Their growth problems with personal

identity are reflected in their draining and preoccupying efforts

to integrate successfully the sexual component of their per-

sonalities. These men manifest unresolved adolescent devel-

opmental problems which are also reflected in their difficulty

in identifying and expressing an inclusive philosophy or theol-

ogy of life and in their ambivalent and unsettled
attitudes

toward authority. In other words, while these men look adult

and have adult responsibilities, they are less than completely

adult on the inside. Their growth has been stalled and they

operate at a later chronological age with the psychological

equipment of an earlier stage of growth.

3) The Developing:

These are men, again a sizable group, who, having been stalled

at a certain level of psychological growth for a number of

years, have, because of changes in their environment or their

personal relationships, begun to grow as persons again. These

men are found across all the age categories but they are deal-

ing with similar issues of incomplete growth. In other
words,

even though the man is in middle age, he has become aware of

certain lacks in his personal development and is making an

effort to make up for them. These men are growing, sometimes

awkwardly, sometimes painfully, but growing nonetheless.

74



They experience a new sense of themselves and their former in-

completeness on all levels of their concern, including that of

their religious development. They bring high motivation to the

task of becoming more alive and manifest this drive to health in

many ways, from going back to school to beginning to relate

more closely with women. There is great vitality in this group

even though they are dealing with serious and sensitive prob-

lems. Some of the developing men choose to leave the priest-

hood, but this is by no means exclusively the choice of the

developing, nor inevitably the outcome of their efforts to

develop themselves. They do, however, shift away from more

traditional, institutional values and toward more personalistic

ideals and convictions in their lives which they lead with

almost aggressive vigor.

4) The Developed:

These men, small in number in any population, are those

whose overall personal growth matches their calendar age.

They are the persons who provide us with the relative measur-

ing sticks we have for what we call maturity and normality.

These men are neither perfect nor conflict free. They have

many problems and difficulties but they respond to them with

a constructive maturity. They make mistakes, have personality

shortcomings, challenges still to work out; that is the face of

health: imperfect but unhidden and undefensive. These men

are independent and self-sufficient, not nearly so much in need

of institutional support as less well developed persons. They

are responsible and reasonably aggressive in their work and

express confidence and warmth in close relationships with

others, including women. They continue to explore and de-

velop their religious convictions as they live life according to

their consciences. There is a settled and stable quality about

these men.

As has been noted, American priests can be classified into these

developmental categories according to the analysis of the depth

interviews as well as the collateral psychological testing that was

given. It is not the purpose of this report to project percentages on

the whole population of priests; it is rather to get a feeling for the

living experience of American priests. Statistically speaking, how-

ever, one would expect similar results if samples were drawn in a

similar way from the population until all American priests had been

interviewed. Simply stated, the results tell us that American priests

75



share with other American men the same developmental problems,

although they manifest them according to the styles and issues of

their particular lives.

Some of the main findings about significant psychological issues

connected with the lives of priests are these:

Religious faith: Many priests experience difficulty in defining and

discussing the nature of their religious commitment and the under-

lying philosophy or theology by which they lead their lives. This

incompletely developed faith seems related to incomplete personal

development and a formation in and life by a religion that stresses

the extrinsic aspects of belief. This is not to say that priests do not

believe; it is rather to observe that for many, as for many other

American men, the interiorization of religious belief is a slow and in-

complete process. It may, in fact, be difficult for a person to deepen

his faith into a set of internal guiding principles if his opportunities

to develop his overall personality are limited. The developing priests

who are trying to complete their growth are actively dealing with

their level of religious conviction and commitment; the developed

have already achieved a level of internalized faith. Unresolved

religious attitudes and a tendency to accept faith as more extrinsic

than intrinsic: this is more characteristic of the underdeveloped

priests in this research.

Authority

:

Surprisingly, authority, despite the widespread publicity

about it as a problem within the priesthood, did not emerge as a

problem quite in the way that the popular impression would have

suggested. In depth interviews few priests complained about author-

ity as their most serious problem; they did not, in fact, describe

themselves as men who worked constantly under the pressure of

authoritarian supervision. Indeed, authority, in the person of a

demanding authority figure, impinges on the life of the ordinary

priest in a limited way. Authority is more of a problem, it would

seem, because of the unresolved and ambivalent attitudes toward it

among priests. This may be partly a function of the manner in which

authority is exercised but it is also related to the fact that many of

these men have not worked through their own attitudes toward au-

thority. Perhaps this is a particular problem for men who are trained

to regard themselves as exempt from many of the ordinary cultural

pressures of authority. In any case, for many priests who may extern-

alize their problems as those of authority, there is a more basic prob-

lem of integrating the meaning of authority into their outlook on life.

Frequently, priests do not take the dictates or attitudes of authority

76



very seriously; many of them devise means to get around rather

than come into direct confrontation with authority.

Celibacy: There is no doubt that celibacy is a well-realized value

in the lives of some priests. It does, however, demand a level of

personal integration and dedication that is relatively rare. For most

priests, and certainly for the underdeveloped, celibacy remains an

ideal which is neither vital nor dynamic. There is little breech of the

regulations of celibacy; American priests are neither impulsive nor

uncontrolled. Celibacy as a personally developing and freeing con-

dition of life just does not exist in the ideal manner in which it is

described. American priests, as a group, are not eagerly waiting to

get married, nor do they believe that optional celibacy will solve

their problems. Instead, they seem to favor the option of marriage

because of the freedom which is involved in the issue. Many would

not, in fact, immediately marry if the ecclesiastical regulation were

modified. It might be added that some of the conditions that have

arisen in the training and living conditions of priests have enabled

them to remain unmarried but at the price of limiting or frustrating

their personal growth. The isolation and distance from human rela-

tionships which has been the source of growth difficulties for many

American priests has been due, in part, to the mode of implementing

the condition of celibacy in the lives of seminarians and priests. The

isolation and protection from normal socially developmental experi-

ences seems a contributing factor in interrupting or suspending

their personal growth. Clearly a majority of American priests favor

optional celibacy even though many of them would not, in fact,

marry were this change introduced.

Summary of Recommendations

:

The heart of the psychological

recommendations centers on the question of whether those with

responsibility for the priesthood wish to assist American priests to

achieve greater maturity and, therefore, greater effectiveness in their

work. This is so because the chief problem described by this study is

one of incomplete growth in the lives of many priests. They are not

sick; they are not fully grown. No response that is disciplinary or

administrative in nature is appropriate to a challenge of personal

growth. Bright and able, American priests need a deeper and

broader experience of life itself if they are to deal with their develop-

mental problems successfully.

It is suggested that an increase of practical freedom as well as an

increase of personal accountability for their work of ministry are

essential elements in dealing with this problem. American priests

77



need a more genuine experience of freedom in all those areas of life

which are recognized as significant to the process of personal devel-

opment. These include freedom concerning celibacy, self-support,

place of residence, life-style, and mode of Gospel service. What

seems most important is not one or the other of these issues but the

reality of the practical freedom which the priests would experience

with enlarged choices in these areas. It is also suggested that much

greater accountability for the professional work of the priest is

needed as a test and expression of their mature exercise of freedom.

Specific recommendations were made for each of the develop-

mental groupings as well as for continued research on other prob-

lems connected with the ministry and life of priests, such as resigna-

tions and retirement.

78



II

Methodology

The methodology of the present study has the following three

major facets: data collection devices, sampling procedures, and ana-

lytic techniques.

Data Collection Devices: The primary information-gathering tech-

nique for the study was the depth interview conducted by a profes-

sional psychologist. The tape-recorded interviews were approxi-

mately two hours in length and biographical in character. Topics of

major focus were the following: Family Life and Relationships, Psy-

chosexual Development, Development of Vocation, Self-Concept,

Interpersonal Relations, Priesthood, Faith, Celibacy, and the Future.

Twelve clinical psychologists at the Ph.D. level who were especially

trained for the study served as interviewers.

Following each interview the psychologist wrote an evaluation of

the information obtained. The purposes of the evaluation were

summary, synthesis, interpretation, and prediction. Each evalua-

tion was approximately 11 pages in length. The form of the evalua-

tion was primarily discursive; limited use was made of rating scales.

These evaluations served as the primary data upon which the report

is based.

In addition to the interview, several psychological tests were used.

Among these were the Loyola Sentence Completion Blank for

Clergymen, Self-Anchoring Rating Scale of Maturity of Faith, Scale

of Identity, and Personal Orientation Inventory.

Sampling Procedures: Potential subjects were selected via a two-

stage stratified random sampling procedure. First stage sampling

units consisted of all the dioceses and religious institutions separately

grouped or "stratified" according to the number of priests affiliated

with them.

These sampling units were arranged in a geographical order and

then sampled within each stratum. The second sampling stage was

the random selection of individual priests within the first stage

units. The sampling plan of this study did not have as its aim the

79



estimation of population parameters. The major concern was the

selection of potential subjects in an objective manner.

A total of 719 priests was selected for participation in the field

interviews according to the sampling methodology described above.

Prior to the field interviews, 60 priests (not included in the above

total) served as interviewees in a three-month pilot study.

Potential subjects were contacted by mail and/or phone. Three

follow-ups were undertaken. In the end, 240 refused to participate;

111 did not respond; 97 were precluded from participation (primar-

ily due to foreign residence, death, or report of having left the active

ministry); 271 completed the psychological interview. With minor

exceptions, these 271 priests quite accurately reflect the composition

of the American priesthood in terms of diocesan-religious affiliation,

age, and geographical dispersion.

Analytic Techniques: Examination of the cases obtained in the

pilot study and those obtained in the field suggested the possibility

of describing four categories of priests in terms of their personal

development. These categories were Developed, Developing, Un-

derdeveloped, and Maldeveloped. A rating system for the categories

was devised, tested, revised, and applied to the sample of priests.

The result of the rating procedure was the following distribution:

Developed, 19; Developing, 50; Underdeveloped, 179; Maldevel-

oped, 23. It should be emphasized that these are not estimates of

population parameters.

The authors again reviewed the cases placed within each category

and expanded the composite personality sketches to include theo-

retical notions appropriate to each. Illustrative case histories were

added. The expanded composite personality sketches, the theo-

retical material, and the case histories comprise the major portion

of the report. The psychological test data were analyzed separately

in terms of this taxonomy of development.

80



An Overview of the Findings

An overview of the results of the present psychological investiga-

tion of American priests can be summarized in a sentence which

sounds simple but which expresses complex truths: The priests of the

United States are ordinary men. Many of their conflicts and chal-

lenges arise precisely because they are ordinary men who may have

to live as though they were not ordinary at all. Perhaps no group of

men has such high expectations placed on it by the Church, society,

themselves and even their closest personal associates. Psychoanalyst

Margaretta K. Bowers has written that "all through the ages the clergy

have suffered from the insurmountable contrast between their very

real humanity and the transcendent requirements of their symbolic

representation as the priest, the Incarnate Christ." (Conflicts of the

Clergy by Margaretta K. Bowers, M.D., Thomas Nelson and Sons,

New York, 1963, p. 9.) The expectations made on the personal life

of the priest have shaped his education, his style of living, and his

mode of relationship to others. But priests are ordinary men and

they can only react to this demanding environment with their ordi-

nary human powers. The results of the psychological investigation

are in no sense alarming. Priests do not emerge as seriously dis-

turbed, rebellious, or atypical individuals. They are rather human

beings with certain limitations, many of which have not been suffi-

ciently appreciated because of the "great expectations" they are

charged with fulfilling. Priests are men, and while this may seem a

simple-minded observation, a deepened sensitivity to the limits as

well as the possibilities of the human condition is indispensable for

a true understanding of the ministry and life of American priests.

Speaking in summary terms again, American priests are bright and

good men who do not as a group suffer from major psychological

problems. Obviously, a cross-sectional look at priests who are

actively functioning does not allow an investigation of those subjects

who may be psychiatrically hospitalized at the time of the inquiry.

A few of the subjects had, at one time or another, been hospitalized

for psychiatric reasons; others had sought psychotherapy for them-

selves on an individual or group basis. The men who have had these

81



experiences, however, constitute a small percentage of the priests of

the United States. This is an index of their general health and a sign

of their similarity to other men in the population. There is no way, in

other words, that the priest population can be described as psycho-

logically sick. The developmental problems of priests, which we will

discuss later, are significant but they cannot be appropriately de-

scribed in psychopathological categories.

American priests are equal to most of the demands that are made

on them by the Church and by their people. This is not to char-

acterize these demands as overwhelming; it is to note that priests

can and do perform without undue stress the services which are

required of them. There is no breakdown, then, in the function

which they perform in society in general. This is not to comment on

the varying quality of the work which these men may perform. As

in any profession or occupation this is as different as the individual

priests are from each other. It is, however, to note that priests

meet their general professional responsibilities in acceptable fashion.

We may reflect on this in another way. American priests, as a class,

do not stand out on either end of the continuum of job performance.

They carry out the duties which are part of their lives, in other words,

pretty much the way most other professional people do, without

unusual comment or notoriety.

In many ways priests reflect the problems of the general popula-

tion. While we will discuss the particular difficulties which many

priests have because of lack of full personal growth, these do not

seem far different from the problems which many of their contem-

porary fellow Americans experience. Priests probably stand up psy-

chologically, according to any overall judgment, as well as any other

professional. It is important to remember, however, that we have

little data about other professional persons because so few have

permitted, encouraged, or cooperated with such in-depth research.

Indeed, as the investigation of the American priesthood proceeded

at Loyola, it was learned that a large professional association, while

interested in a study of its members, was unwilling to subject them

to the same kind of intense scrutiny which constituted the essential

part of this study. What we do know of some other professions,

however, does suggest that the priests of the United States would

not suffer terribly in comparison. This is, it would seem, a function

of the common humanity of persons across all the professions rather

than of the special nature of any particular profession. While inter-

ests, motivations, and the nature of work may differ, there is a com-

82



mon core of personality which overlaps most of the professions,

reflecting the truth of psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan's famous

phrase, "We are much more simply human than anything else."

The priesthood is not reduced in any psychological or philosoph-

ical sense by observing the ordinary character of American priests

and thereby modifying the expectations made on individual persons

who are priests. They are not supermen. But this is not because they

have chosen the priesthood rather than some other walk of life; it is

because they are men. The profession of the priesthood, if it can so

be described for the purpose of this discussion, has long been sur-

rounded with assertions and traditions which have set the priest

apart and made him, in effect, an extraordinary personage in the eyes

of the Church and its human communities. This is reflected in the

way the priesthood has been written about, the social reinforcement

of the priesthood by the Catholic population, and also by its share

in the general esteem accorded to all clergymen. In the eyes of

Catholics, priests have had very special qualities. This has notably

affected the conditions of recruitment, training, and the living and

working experiences of priests themselves. They have been encour-

aged to look on themselves as separate, called to a very high voca-

tion of service, and asked to transform their own personalities into

that of Jesus Christ Himself. Catholics are so familiar with this kind

of language that one must step back for a moment and reflect on the

powerful effects of these expectations and attitudes on the way

priests have looked at themselves and their roles within the Church.

Perhaps this is illustrated somewhat dramatically but nonetheless

accurately in the example chosen by Dr. Bowers to underscore the

same point. She cites the following reflections from Catherine de

Hueck (Dear Seminarian
, Milwaukee, Bruce Publishing Co., 1950,

pp. 85-87):

For a priest is a miracle of God's love to us; a man

who, through his sacrament of ordination, becomes

another Christ with powers that beggar human imagination . . .

nothing can be greater in this world of ours than a priest.

Nothing but God Himself.

A priest is a holy man because he walks before the Face

of the All Holy.

A priest understands all things.

A priest forgives all things.

A priest is a man who lives to serve.

83



A priest is a man who has crucified himself, so that

he too may be lifted up and draw all things to Christ.

A priest is a symbol of the Word Made Flesh.

A priest is the naked sword of God's justice.

A priest is the hand of God's mercy.

A priest is the reflection of God's love. He teaches

God to us ... He brings God to us ... He represents God to us.

As Bowers notes: "This statement on the nature of the priesthood,

though put in exalted terms, reflects in a very real sense the clergy-

man's ideal self-image, and at the same time intimates the staggering

demands on his heart and conscience if he is to fulfill it." It may

well be observed that this is precisely the attitude which one should

have toward the priesthood, that this traditional style captures the

essential separateness and dignity of this occupational choice. That

may well be the truth, but the psychologist as such cannot pass judg-

ment on theological realities. He can only look at the psychological

truth as it emerges in the individual persons into whose lives he is

privileged to look. Presumably, however, theological realities mani-

fest themselves in the psychological realities of priests' lives. The

psychologist must conclude that the priests of the United States,

marked largely by sincerity and good will in trying to meet the ex-

pectations of their role as priests, cannot shatter or transcend the

bonds of their own humanity in the process. In other words, priests

remain limited human beings under strong pressures to be more than

this on a full-time basis. One need not destroy an ideal to recognize

that this is extremely difficult for even exceptional men; it is under-

standably impossible for ordinary persons to exceed the limitations

of their own personalities.

It is important to put the reality of their psychological "ordinari-

ness" into focus if we are to understand the ministry and life of

American priests. They do not demonstrate any exemptions from

what we understand as the ordinary laws of psychological growth.

Nothing makes up for human experiences which they may have

missed or which, for one reason or another in their personal his-

tories, may have been distorted for them. There is, in other words,

and despite the other theological claims and powerful wishes of the

Catholic community itself, no special psychology for priests.

Unless we can accept the fact that priests are psychologically

similar to the general population of men, it may be difficult to under-

84



stand one of the major findings of this research. A large proportion

of the priests in this cross-sectional sample, as in any cross-sectional

sample of American men, has not developed to full maturity. Al-

though we do not wish to make statements about proportions as

though we could project these estimates onto the entire population

of priests, the careful method of sampling employed in this study

indicates that successive samples drawn with the same care would

yield the same results as those which have come from the interviews

with this group of men. In other words, if one were to draw succes-

sive samples until the entire population of American priests had

been interviewed, the results would not appreciably change. A large

proportion of priests would emerge as "underdeveloped" persons.

This means that these priests have reached a level of overall personal

growth that is not equal to that which is expected of them at their

age and in view of their careful selection and lengthy training. This

is a major significant finding of this research. These psychologically

underdeveloped priests probably reflect the fact that a great many

American males are also underdeveloped. You do not have to be a

priest in order to have this growth difficulty. In other words, in this

regard the priesthood tells us something about normal persons and

their developmental problems just as surely as it tells us about the

men who are specifically priests.

The difficulty, of course, is that the population of priests is care-

fully selected and supervised during a long training period. One

would presume that, with this care, psychological underdevelop-

ment would have been noticed and would have been remedied.

Educational analysts within the Church have suggested that the selec-

tion and training process tended to mask rather than reveal the lack

of development in many of the candidates for the priesthood. It did,

after all, reward conformity, a certain passivity to regulations and

authority, as well as willingness to stay away from many normal

developmental experiences such as dating and a normal social life.

Recruitment and training for the priesthood have not, in any case,

eliminated the difficulty of finding so many psychologically under-

developed persons functioning within the profession. Were we to

inspect the general population, even without sophisticated psycho-

logical data, we could see many signs of widespread underdevelop-

ment in the American male population. Divorce statistics, stress

in marriages, the almost epic interest in psychological group ex-

periences to expand personal sensitivity: all these tell us that men

in general have real difficulties with psychological growth. Im-

maturity in personal development is manifest in subtle statistics,

85



such as the fact that over six million buy and read Playboy magazine,

a publication designed, according to social commentators, for the

immature and undeveloped personality. So too the widespread

middle-class, white-collar interest in pornography also points to a

lack of full personal development in a great many Americans. To

say that priests have psychological difficulties because they are not

fully developed is to speak about them as typical members of the

American male community.

This is not to say that most priests, or American men for that mat-

ter, are sick. This medical notion of sickness is not entirely appro-

priate in speaking of the psychological difficulties which indicate im-

mature personal development. Sickness is not the correct concept to

describe problems which are related to inadequate social and/or

educational experiences. People who are immature may not need

medical or psychological treatment as much as they do need a

broader and richer experience of life itself. We shall discuss some
of the characteristics of the priests of the United States and the way

that this lack of personal development is manifested in their lives.

First of all, the problems of underdeveloped priests are not cogni-

tive in nature. Priests do not lack knowledge nor are they defective

in their capacity to understand or reason. The problems of under-

developed priests are emotional in character. They reflect a lack

of proper integration of their emotional and intellectual growth.

Underdeveloped men have not passed through all the stages of

growth which lead to what is recognized as adult and mature be-

havior. They look like adults but, on the inside, they still struggle

with the challenges of previous levels of psychological development.

The priests of the United States use high order defenses to handle

the problems of psychological underdevelopment. They utilize, for

example, intellectualization with obsessive features in order to ad-

just to their lack of growth. As defenses go, intellectualization is a

good one. It is much better, in other words, than some regressive or

erratic pattern of behavior because it reflects a certain measure of

intelligence and psychological resourcefulness. It also indicates that

instead of moving forward and dealing with the problems of growth,

priests who are underdeveloped tend, if we can extend the analogy,

to move sideways through multiple adjustments to their lack of

growth. They do not confront their lack of growth or deal with it

directly but they are adept at smoothing it over through their skilled

use of this intellectual defense. This enables them to think about life

while it excuses them from having to feel the conflict which they

86



might experience if they were not so skilled at employing this de-

fense. This intellectual defense enables underdeveloped priests to

impose a consistency on their view of themselves even when their

understanding of themselves really does not match what they are like

in reality. They are good, in other words, at not looking closely at

the gaps between what they are really like and what they perceive

themselves to be like. The use of such defenses, of course, exacts a

price from them. It makes it more difficult for the underdeveloped

person to grow further and it also imposes limits on his capacity to

enter into and to enjoy life in an adult way.

How does this incomplete personal development manifest itself?

The chief area in which the underdeveloped priests manifest their

incomplete psychological growth is in their relationships with other

persons. These relationships are ordinarily distant, highly stylized,

and frequently unrewarding for the priest and for the other person.

Underdeveloped priests report their interpersonal relationships as

difficult, even though they like people and, at a deep level of their

personality, would like to be closer to them. There is a certain pain

involved for them in this conflict between wanting the psychological

experience of being close to people and yet finding it awkward and

difficult to get themselves into close relationships with others. Some

may have the impression that the priest has a host of intimate friends.

This is true of some priests. We speak here of that segment of under-

developed priests, however, who reveal in depth interviews that they

have few close friends. There is quite a difference between revealing

one's isolation and fears about relationships in a lengthy interview

and making the surface claim of many friends. Beneath the surface

one finds extensive interpersonal uneasiness. This is reflected in the

underdeveloped priests' description of their problems in getting

through to people in the context of their priestly functioning.

Underdeveloped priests are genuinely uneasy about intimacy. Inti-

macy is here used as it is employed in the developmental schema of

Erikson. It refers to responsible closeness with other persons, one of

the most important challenges of adult life, and one that can only

be handled by a person who has worked through the adolescent

challenge of securing his own identity. Most of the underdeveloped

priests have not worked through these problems, and they do experi-

ence difficulty with their own personal identity; they are, therefore,

uneasy in handling psychological intimacy. They may report many

acquaintances. Acquaintances are not the same as friends. It is in-

deed a moving experience to sense the lack of depth in the human

relationships of many priests. What these men say about themselves

87



over and over is that there are few people to whom they are close,

few people who know them well, indeed, few people who have

enabled them to express themselves as fully as they did during the

interview conducted for the study. Psychologists have long been

aware of the fact of social desirability which affects the way people

respond to questions. This tendency to say the things that make a

person sound normal or like most others explains why priests may

report many acquaintances in one moment and then admit few

friends in the next.

Underdeveloped priests experience difficulty at a focal point of

their priesthood because their relationships with others constitute

such a substantial part of their day and, therefore, of their basic life

and occupational experience. They know difficulty and discomfort in

the very area which should be a deep source of personal and work

satisfaction. For a more rewarding sense of pastoral achievement they

should feel confident and at ease in their dealings with other people.

The opposite seems to be more characteristic. Some priests feel that

on principle they should remain at a distance from other people.

This is a good example of the use of an intellectual defense. This

asserted principle provides a socially acceptable and inwardly re-

warding good reason, in other words, for not solving the problems

of intimacy. But the person, whether he is a priest or not, who has

not solved the problem of intimacy has not reached maturity either.

The individual who is not sure of his identity and who experiences

uneasiness in his personal relationships and work experiences can-

not enter very deeply into life.

In underdeveloped priests there are evidences of passivity, exag-

gerated docility, and a tendency to identify themselves through the

role of the priesthood rather than through their own personalities.

This may be the outgrowth of their seminary training. It has been

pointed out that a certain theological and scriptural interpretation of

traditional Catholic teachings tended to diminish the value and im-

portance of personal identity especially in the work of clergymen.

They were to minimize the possibility of their own contribution to

any work they might do, feeling that this work was validated by their

cooperation with God's will and through the manifestation of His

power rather than through the exercise of God's help. They mistrust

themselves, feel unworthy, and frequently hold back from using their

full capacities. This lack of development is reinforced by aspects of

their training and by some of the principles by which they choose to

live. They perform adequately, as was noted previously, but this is

88



not the same as performing with a sense of or an aspiration toward

excellence.

There are many other ways in which this incomplete personal

development is manifested in underdeveloped priests. Perhaps chief

among these is the fact that so many of the underdeveloped have not

achieved an integrated psychosexual identity. For whatever reasons,

these priests have not resolved the problems which are ordinarily

worked through during the time of adolescence. Sexual feelings are

a source of conflict and difficulty and much energy goes into sup-

pressing them or the effort to distract from them. They find it diffi-

cult to place sexuality into an easy and manageable perspective in

their lives. Sexuality is, in other words, non-integrated in the lives of

underdeveloped priests and many of them function at a level of

psychosexual growth below that appropriate to their chronological

age. This uncertainty about their sexuality affects their sense of per-

sonal identity and makes it difficult for them to accept and deal with

the challenge of intimacy. This uneasiness concerning sexuality is

reinforced by the guilt which has been culturally associated with

sexuality. This is especially so because of the underdeveloped

priests' lack of instruction or emotional understanding of the mean-

ing of sexuality in their own lives. Most report education about

sexual development in a negative or non-existent way; many report

no normal developmental social experience. Most of them use

strong psychological controls so that their public behavior will in no

way stray out of bounds. These controls, however, drain away an

inordinate amount of energy and time in these priests' lives. To put

it simply, sex takes more time and effort to handle and control, and

is productive of more anguish than it should be in any adult life.

This excessive concern and uneasiness does not produce growth.

What is presumed to be central in their lives is found to be

peripheral and frequently superficial. Underdeveloped priests have

not questioned or worked through for themselves an integrated and

sustaining theology or philosophy of life in depth. They would not,

in most cases, bring up the subject of religious faith if it were not

suggested by the interviewer himself. It is clear that the priesthood,

howsoever it may be surrounded by religious ideals and presumed

theological motivations, frequently meets the needs of underdevel-

oped priests in a very detailed way. In other words, the vocation to

the priesthood frequently does more for the underdeveloped indi-

vidual than the individual does for it. It enables the underdeveloped

priest to maintain a position of prestige and security and to enjoy

89



protection from testing his own powers against the competition of

the world. The priesthood for many of these underdeveloped men

is a vocational choice which allows them to continue in life without

really needing to develop in all areas of their personality.

This combination of factors affects markedly their capacity to

implement religious ideals in their lives. We speak here of the
underdeveloped priests, although, for proper perspective, it is im-

portant to remember that developed priests do, in fact, live their

religious ideals authentically. The number of well-developed men is

not great. However, the priests who are described as developing are

dealing more realistically with their religious principles and prac-

tices. The maldeveloped priests, again a small number, have major

and relatively unresponsive psychological problems in dealing with

their religious convictions. The underdeveloped have difficulties, for

which they frequently blame themselves, which are, in a real sense,

perfectly predictable and understandable given the fact that they

are ordinary men. In other words, their failure to realize fully the

proposed meaning of celibacy in their lives is not an indictment of

them or their good will; it reflects the difficulties any group of aver-

age men would have if they had to live in the same circumstances.

It is important to understand this clearly because the danger of dis-

tortion here is great. The underdeveloped practice celibacy exactly

the way any ordinary group of well-educated but incompletely

mature men would. Their difficulties are precisely those you would

expect if you took a group of young men, sent them to special

schools and virtually eliminated their contact with women, and then

put them to work in circumstances that continued to reinforce all

male living in a socially restricted public religious role. Any group of

men would find it difficult to make celibacy a vital and integrating

force in their lives if they had this educational experience. So it is

with the underdeveloped priests, few of whom violate their vow of

celibacy but who adjust to it rather than live it with much vitality.

Celibacy for underdeveloped priests means that they are not

married; in the lives of underdeveloped priests it does not reflect a

higher development of religiously motivated dedication.

On the contrary, celibacy, which most of them maintain, as has

been noted, through adjustment, creates a situation which makes it

genuinely difficult for them to continue their development. So much

energy goes into adjusting to celibacy, so much effort into dealing

with basically non-integrated sexuality, that these men could hardly

be described as more free to do their priestly work because of celi-

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bacy. As a condition of life, celibacy tends to reinforce the very

aspects of these men which need development if they are to be more

mature as individuals. It is also suggested that it is the lack of

overall personal maturity which prevents these men from deepening

their own religious faith.

The problematic situation of celibacy probably explains the gen-

eral attitudes toward celibacy found in the depth interviews as well

as in the sociological questionnaire. The majority of priests favor

making celibacy a true option for the clergy. At the same time the

majority of priests would not marry if the celibacy law were changed

in their lifetime. One senses their willingness to continue in the

present situation with the simultaneous realization that there should

be greater practical freedom in regard to the election of celibacy as

a condition of clerical life. Many of these men seem to realize that

marriage is not the automatic answer to their own problems; indeed,

it is clear that many of the underdeveloped priests are aware that in

their incomplete development they would not effect a satisfactory

marriage. Some feel that they are too old or too set in their ways to

marry. In any case they share a conviction that, no matter what they

would personally do, celibacy should be made optional. This con-

viction also obtains among the most developed priests who have

integrated celibacy in a meaningful and religiously motivated man-

ner in their lives. Some who strongly resist a change in the celibacy

law do so because the projected change threatens their own adjust-

ment. For example, it would challenge them to establish closer

relationships with women. Their rejection of the possibility of

optional celibacy expresses their own desire to preserve it because

it is such a functional facet of their own hesitant adjustment to life.

It is quite remarkable that most of the priests who do make celibacy

a well-rounded value in their lives are not only unthreatened by a

possible modification of the law but are, in fact, strongly in favor of

a change to optional celibacy.

It seems clear that, were the law of celibacy modified to allow

greater practical freedom of choice, most priests would approve and

some would immediately marry. The majority would, however, re-

main as they are. This suggests that the real psychological issue, even

when it is not identified consciously as such, is greater freedom

rather than the question of celibacy itself. The priests of the United

States are not, as they are sometimes popularly pictured, restlessly

waiting to marry. They do want the freedom to choose or not

choose celibacy, however, and this might vitalize rather than destroy

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this traditional condition of service. Freedom, of course, concerns

much broader issues than just celibacy and has many implications

for the fuller development of American priests.

From the depth interviews it seems clear that most of these men

did not feel psychologically free about the question of celibacy

when the time came for them to make the decision during their

seminary training. This is also understandable from a psychological

point of view. The point of choice for these men came near the end

of a long and secluded seminary training during which, it now seems

clear, the conditions of removal from the world, strict discipline, and

the reduction of social contacts, arrested the development, to one

degree or another, of the seminarians. This result, as has been noted,

is exactly what would be expected with ordinary men. Nothing in

the atmosphere of the training successfully supplanted the growth

that simply did not take place because of these restrictive psycholog-

ical conditions. These men did not, in fact, know themselves as well

as a man making this major kind of commitment might well be

expected to. Indeed, men who have integrated celibacy in their lives

in a successful way frequently report that this was the outcome of

self-search and growth only after they had been ordained to the

priesthood. The fact that so many men, across all the classifications,

feel that they were not completely free at the time of choice in the

seminary may explain why they want celibacy to be made more

truly optional at this time.

There is little indication that American priests would exercise

freedom in any impulsive or destructive way. Most of them want to

do their best and they would not flout the laws of God or the Church

if they were given a wider range of options. Indeed, they might, as

a group, develop a more mature concept of authority than they now

have. They are not men about whom one would have to be afraid

if greater freedom were allowed to them. The developed men

would hardly change their present mode of living and working, be-

cause they live very responsibly already. The maldeveloped have

lost so much inner freedom that an increase of it in their life or work

situations would mean little. The developing priests would use

greater freedom to pursue their own understanding of themselves;

they might seek wider forms of life experience but not in any over-

sensationalized way; they would merely broaden their social and

occupational horizons, such as any growing persons do.

The underdeveloped priests are not a group that would abuse

greater freedom either. In fact, the problem might be to get them to

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use it responsibly, to accept, in other words, the consequences of

their own decisions and programs. The underdeveloped American

priests have not resolved their feelings toward authority, largely

because this is a developmental task which they have not really

worked through yet. Many tend to have ambivalent attitudes toward

authority, wanting its protection and direction on the one hand

while they resent it and use it as a handy device with which to

externalize their own problems on the other. This is not a remark-

able finding; again, it is predictable behavior in men who have been

educated to docility in a profession which has always emphasized

the role and dignity of authority. The remarkable discovery of this

study is that authority seems to impinge so little on the day to day

activities of these priests. They perceive their lives as circumscribed

by authority but authority, in the person of a living and controlling

authority figure, does not enter their lives often in a practical way.

It is true that in some parish settings the pastor operates in an author-

itarian manner and that he will ordinarily go beyond some fraction of

the priests' activities, and there are many parish situations where the

paster operates in a very different manner. The point is that most of

the underdeveloped priests are not sure what they really feel about

authority. In this they may reflect a broader American problem, but,

in any case, they are not totally consistent in their attitudes. This

may spring from the psychological sources of their own personal-

ities: their ambivalence about earlier authorities in their lives, their

need for approval, and their consequent tendency to some passivity

toward authority. Whatever the case, they do not evince a com-

pletely integrated attitude toward authority in their adult lives.

They find it easy to describe their problems in terms of authority

but this is a common strategy for all men who would prefer to do

this than recognize their own limitations. There is little evidence,

however, to suggest that, were all the authorities in their lives sud-

denly to transform themselves according to their wishes, they would

find their problems solved. The underdeveloped priests do not, in

general, display a well thought out or consistent pattern of responses

to authority. They may speak about changing it but they would feel

very uneasy if they did not have its approval. They may perceive it

as personally oppressive and yet, for all practical purposes, ignore it

in their own lives. In fact, in the day to day transactions of their

lives, it seems clear that these priests do pretty much what they want

to do within the general limits of the profession. They have a prac-

tical flexibility of scheduling which is not available to many profes-

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sional people. When regulations get in their way they frequently

display real ingenuity in circumventing them.

Authority is not the practical problem in everyday living that one

might have anticipated. This may be a function of the way authority

is exercised, but it is also a function of incomplete development in

many of these men. They are freer than they would like to admit to

perform their professional service; authority seldom personally inter-

venes in their lives; their own ambivalent attitudes toward authority

make them inconsistent in their feelings about it as they waver from

dependence to independence in relationship to it. Authority, if it is

a major problem, may be such because it does not seem to be a fully

realized value on the part of those who exercise it or those who are

subject to it. There is some evidence to suggest that priests are be-

coming increasingly indifferent to it.

In summary, the ordinary men who are American priests are

bright, able, and dedicated. A large number of them are under-

developed as persons with a consequent lack of fully realized

religious and human values in their lives. They are not sick; they are

not fully grown. They seem to need a broader, deeper, and gen-

uinely freer experience of life to overcome this lack of development.

There seem to be minimal risks in increasing the active options in

their lives and, therefore, increasing the areas in which they must

become more fully responsible for themselves and their work. The

priests of the United States are clearly adequate in their function;

they could be far more effective personally and professionally if they

were helped to achieve greater human and religious maturity. The

basic therapy for this kind of problem is the opportunity and encour-

agement for a deeper and freer participation in life itself.

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IV

Recommendations

The recommendations of this chapter are related to basic psycho-

logical questions which must be proposed to those who are respon-

sible for the continued development of the priesthood: what are

your goals or expectations for American priests? This question leads

immediately to two others which seem to express the psychological

implications of the findings of the present research:

1. Do you put first priority on assisting American priests to

achieve greater personal maturity and therefore greater effec-

tiveness as priests?

2. Do you rather put priority on American priests' adjusting them-

selves to the expectations of the institutional priesthood even

at the price of not developing themselves?

There is a conflict implied by these two points of view, although

it is obviously one that is not impossible to resolve. Those responsi-

ble for the exercise of the priesthood should, however, understand

the terms of the conflict with which they must deal before they can

move to meet it. There is a problem, even though it may be a prob-

lem shared by many other persons and institutions in our culture. The

problem arises precisely because a sizable group of American priests

are not as developed psychologically as they could be. There is also

evidence that a number of them are aware of this and are anxious to

grow more as persons and as priests. This basic dynamism is healthy

and explains many of the efforts for greater responsibility and self-

determination within the Church. On the other hand, those respon-

sible for the priesthood have long-term expectations of how the men

who are priests should be recruited, educated, and how they should

live. These might be described as the institutional expectations of

the priesthood, the conditions which, if observed readily, will mini-

mize the stress in administering the activity of priests so that it fits

into the pattern of organizational needs. This dilemma is common to

all institutions: how to manage personnel so that what contributes

most effectively to personal growth also contributes to the work of

the organization. The definition and resolution of these mutual

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expectations regarding the priesthood and the work of preaching

the Gospels is at the very heart of understanding the issues un-

covered by this investigation.

One need not take sides to outline this difficulty, but one would

fail as a psychological consultant if one does not try to make the

dimensions of the difficulties as clear as possible. If the men who are

priests become increasingly aware of the challenges which they

experience because of their lack of personal development, then they

will gradually begin to seek what they consider to be the appropriate

remedy. This movement will be toward those values and conditions

of life which provide greater freedom personally and occupationally.

They will reject solutions which emphasize conformity to organiza-

tional expectations without adequate consideration of what they

value in their own personal growth. On the other hand, those re-

sponsible for the overall functioning of an organization may not

conceptualize the problem in quite the same way; they are pre-

occupied with institutional concerns and, in the light of this focus,

may emphasize conformity to the expectations of the organization

as a fundamental consideration for the adjustment of the personnel.

This, indeed, seems the case with the American priesthood, where

the conflict between the desire for personal growth on the part of

priests and the seeming institutional restrictions and expectations for

their acceptance of traditional patterns meet headlong. This is not

an irremediable problem but it is one that can grow more sharp-

edged and complicated the longer its resolution is delayed.

This can be put in another way. The main problem of American

priests is not sickness which needs some specific psychological treat-

ment. It is, along with that of most other Americans, a problem of

incomplete growth, for which there is only the remedy of an ex-

panded and realistic experience of life itself. Whenever individuals

have a personal problem of growth they do not solve it by making

themselves conform to expectations outside themselves. Authentic

growth is necessarily expressive of the individual himself; it frees him

from conforming as a mode of adjustment and commitment to being

more responsible for himself. This process of releasing greater

growth in persons does not necessarily set them against other people

or the organization in which they work. In fact, it usually allows

them to contribute with greater cooperation and creativity as well as

a greater sense of self-satisfaction. Research on management has

confirmed many times over the wisdom of encouraging growth as

the key to an effective organization. Those who are responsible for

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the organization of the Church must review their expectations on

their priest-personnel and ask whether they want greater maturity in

them or whether the demands of the institution make it necessary to

insist on re-emphasizing conformity to the traditional role of the

priesthood.

Is it important to keep this general question in mind, even though

one might ask: Is it not possible to have both of these values pre-

served, that is, greater personal development in priests and yet a

continuity in the role expectations of the priesthood at the same

time? Perhaps this question can only be answered effectively after

all the research evidence on the priesthood is completely absorbed

by those who read it. It is obvious that no solution can totally

ignore the needs of either the individuals or the institution; but no

solution will say that changes are unnecessary in either the lives of

individuals or on the part of the institution. Psychologically speak-

ing, changes have occurred and will continue to occur. One needs

thorough understanding to make decisions that insure the positive

course of the continuing process of change. A clear picture of the

conflict at the root of possible responses to the problems of the

priesthood is necessary before final decisions can be made. No

recommendation that ignores the need to reconcile individual

growth with institutional aims can be psychologically successful.

One might sum up these observations thusly: you cannot strengthen

the personalities of an institution's personnel without modifying the

expectations for conforming behavior on their part; you cannot

emphasize institutional goals and demand conformity to them on the

part of personnel without limiting their personal development.

The basic problem with American priests would seem to be the

need to provide them with the opportunities and the encourage-

ment to continue their personal growth in a successful manner. One

must remember the fact that American priests are, psycholog-

ically speaking, ordinary men; greater realism about this will allow

sensible positive recommendations for the kinds of experiences they

require to move forward in their personal growth. To recommend

the creation of more opportunities for self-development is not in

any sense to pander to some kind of weakness. It is rather to capital-

ize on their strength, their residual capacity to achieve greater matur-

ity. One must work with what is there, not with what one wishes

were there or presumes is there as far as psychological make-up is

concerned. Indeed, some of the policies that have been imple-

mented to prepare men for the priesthood have been based on a

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misunderstanding of psychological reality; these policies, such as

removal of seminarians from ordinary developmental educational

and social experiences, have contributed to arresting rather than

freeing the growth of men who are priests. If one is committed to

the continued personal development of priests, one must have a real

sense of the nature of the basic difficulty. It is not sickness that needs

a specific medical or psychological treatment; it is personal develop-

ment, and that can only be treated by a more adequate experience

of mature living.

It would be relatively simple to write recommendations for Amer-

ican priests if we could conclude that they suffered some psycholog-

ical illness. A very small proportion of them would be described by

this notion of sickness; psychological treatment on a vast scale is

obviously not the response of choice for this population. It is true

that there are priests who are classified, as a certain number of per-

sons in any profession would be, as maldeveloped. The following

seem to be appropriate suggestions regarding these priests:

1) The maldeveloped will always function within the limitations

imposed by their severe psychological problems. They should not

be expected to overcome them as though these problems were

simply bad habits or evidences of weak wills. Greater sensitivity and

awareness of symptoms is needed, because frequently symptoms are

the only language in which these maldeveloped men convey their

message of inner discomfort. A more prompt response to them as

individuals would enable a proper diagnosis and course of treatment

to be planned at a time when it would be far more beneficial to

them. Those who have suffered serious psychological problems

need continued support and understanding, and, perhaps in certain

circumstances, a greater positive toleration of their eccentricity if

they are to continue some measure of psychological functioning in

the priesthood.

2) The benefits of an adequate psychological screening program

are underscored by the evidence of this research. In every case there

was early clear information about their psychological difficulties

which would have enabled authorities to make much better de-

cisions both for these priests and the Church itself. The signs have

been there a long time and skilled psychiatrists and psychologists

would have been aware of them at an early period in their lives.

3) With regard to the rehabilitation of the maldeveloped some

fresh thinking should be done about the ideal mode of readjustment.

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Frequently in the past, the notion of being recovered has been

synonymous with the idea of returning to the work of the priest-

hood. This may be a dangerously narrow and restrictive ideal to

propose for these men. It seems clear that it may be healthier for

many of them to be able to move out of the priesthood with minimal

difficulty rather than to strive only to readjust to it. A more accept-

ant attitude to their future possibilities would create a better atmos-

phere for the success of their efforts to re-integrate themselves.

4) The last point in dealing with the severely emotionally troubled

priests is to recall that what is appropriate for them may not be at all

appropriate for other priests. In other words, while psychological

screening will help to identify those with serious emotional liabilities

and enable one to decide on an appropriate treatment for them, it

will not do quite the same thing for the men whose problem is

growth rather than sickness.

It is neither realistic nor practical to recommend some form of

psychological therapy for the underdeveloped priests of America.

While they might profit from it to a certain degree, it would not

touch the basic problems nor do much to relieve the situational diffi-

culties which promote and sustain this lack of development. As has

been mentioned several times before, these men need a more active

incorporation into life itself. They need, first of all, to be stirred to

deal with their growth problems and then assisted in every way to

do this constructively. Many of them do not really recognize that

they are not fully grown; they are so firmly defended by their adjus-

tive styles that they may be insensitive to their basic lack of maturity.

The underdeveloped priests are men of good will; this is no indict-

ment of that. Not all of them, however, recognize that they could be

more fully grown, that their work could be more fruitful and satisfy-

ing, and that they could, in a real sense, experience life in a richer

and happier way. So many of them are fearful of others, cut off

from personal relationships, and only tentatively dealing with the

adolescent issues of their own identity, that they draw back from the

challenges of a deeper form of living. The only long-range way to

improve the priesthood as a function of service is, of course, to

make it possible for priests to improve themselves. The problems

with which they have to deal are not intellectual as much as they are

emotional. They must learn a little better how to live in the full

dimensions of their personalities. This is an affective rather than a

totally rational problem. They are ordinary men who have tried their

best to cooperate with a system of training and a discipline of life

99



which have not introduced them fully to the real problems of their

personal development. Indeed, one might observe that seminary

training reinforced aspects of their personalities which really did

not need further strengthening (self-control, a sense of duty, docility)

while it ignored the areas in which they needed genuine develop-

ment (personal identity, ability to relate closely and responsibly with

others, self-confidence).

The therapy for underdeveloped persons is not a greater insistence

on conformity. Psychologically speaking, these men need a greater

practical freedom within which to assume their true adult responsi-

bilities in life. Underdeveloped priests need more active options, be-

ginning at an earlier age and extending throughout their careers.

They need, in order to overcome passivity and a tendency to go

along with life, more challenges to exercise freedom in regard to

their own lives and the work which they do. The emphasis, as it

was in earlier comments on celibacy, is on the quality of freedom

itself rather than on any specific object of it. Unless responsible free-

dom becomes more clearly the environment within which men may

serve as priests, one cannot expect the problems of underdevelop-

ment to be dealt with constructively. What, however, are some of

the specific areas in which greater practical freedom could be intro-

duced into the lives of priests? Freedom and a sense of trust and

concern for its mature use should be introduced in those aspects of

life which are the most important for personal development. It does

little good to increase the freedom of individuals in areas of their

lives which are not of great significance. In fact, those responsible

for the development of the priesthood might ask, "Flow much free-

dom can we afford to give and still insure a cohesive and responsible

priestly ministry?" In other words, what are the immutables, the

essential things which cannot change? When these are clear, then

it is easier to see the dimensions of priestly life where freedom could

be sensibly increased.

It may, for example, be essential to maintain a very clear and

healthy relationship between a bishop and his priests if the work of

the Church is to go forward. This may be one of the immutables,

without which the identity of the priesthood would fragment badly.

Is this achieved by control or by increased cooperation or a healthy

compromise of these elements? There must be some essential agree-

ment on the nature of Gospel teaching and Gospel service to the

world, but these ends may be achieved by augmented educational

and other programs rather than by anything else. In any case, as the

100



qualities which must be preserved are more clearly defined, it will be

easy to specify more clearly the areas in which greater freedom

could be granted without damage either to the nature of the priest-

hood or the integrity of the institution.

What, then, are some of the areas of life in which responsible

freedom is important for the growth of persons? One might begin

with the educations of priests, in which programs emphasizing

greater freedom have already been introduced to some extent.

Priests need to be trained in a more individual manner than was the

case when seminary training was characterized by conformity.

Seminarians must be helped to understand themselves and to de-

velop fully the special talents which they may have been given for

the benefit of the larger community which they will serve as priests.

An individualized approach to the training of priests allows greater

freedom but it also insists on greater personal accountability. This is

the mixture that makes for maturity.

It is the same in the exercise of the priesthood itself. Greater free-

dom can be allowed in many areas of the personal lives of priests

—

in celibacy, living quarters, self-support, and opportunities for fur-

ther education—but only if at the same time there is an increased
demand on their professional performance as priests. Up until now

the emphasis has been on the rather close supervision of the priest's

personal life without much mature supervision of his professional

life. Greater accountability for the manner in which a priest dis-

charges his obligations of service can only increase maturity; greater

freedom in his personal life can only enlarge his opportunities to use

it in a self-developing and responsible manner.

It should be noted, of course, that while there are some risks in

enlarging the genuine freedom in the lives of these men, there is

not much danger that they will abuse it. In fact, for some of the

more lethargic, the problem will continue to be that of getting them

to take active and creative advantage of it. These men are not,

however, impulsive persons; they are, if anything, just the opposite,

more overcontrolled than undercontrolled. There is not much dan-

ger that they would use enlarged freedom for purposes that would

subvert the institution which they serve. While there will be neces-

sary adjustments to be made to make this freedom truly available

to them, a greater consequent maturity will enable these men to

serve more cooperatively and more effectively in the priesthood. A

much greater fear arises if one asks what will happen if the freedom

of American priests is not expanded in a practical manner?

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Part of the answer to that comes from an inspection of the priests

who are designated as developing. These men are, as a matter of

fact, attempting to enlarge their range of personal choices in order

to achieve greater personal growth. For many this is an extremely

difficult process, although the experience of increased growth makes

up for the pain of having to stretch oneself to attain it. Clearly, some

of the developing priests are discovering new strengths within them-

selves which enable them to function more effectively in their work

of ministry. They frequently find that they no longer need to depend

on the institution for as much support as they once did. Their

strength comes now from within, where a deepened faith and set

of convictions provides a more stable bedrock for their work. Others

discover that the course of development leads them out of the priest-

hood, where they feel they never really belonged or which they now

feel in conflict with because of new attitudes toward themselves

and the Church. It is clear that, if greater responsible freedom is not

encouraged for priests, more and more of them will find themselves,

one way or another, on the path of personal development anyway.

This may lead some to greater dedication; it may lead others to new

decisions about their lives. In other words, those men who are

closest to a realization that they still have personal growth to achieve

will continue to move into this challenge because of its profound

personal importance to them. This pattern will continue even if it is

unrecognized, unsupervised, and, on the part of Church authorities,

unresponded to.

The developed members of the priest population are people who

can also be trusted with more freedom. The fact that they have

developed as well as they have reflects the favorable life experiences

which they have had. Their maturity enables them, in whatever work

they do, to accept new freedoms with confidence and a sense of

responsibility. Indeed, the revitalization of the priesthood may de-

pend on reinforcing the men who are most capable of integrating

the goals of personal growth and institutional integrity in their lives.

One of the great strengths of developed priests is their lack of

psychological defensiveness. The developed should be identified for

their leadership potential for the future of the Church. More needs

to be learned about the developed priests of the country with a view

to helping them to continue to grow and also to understand the kind

of man who can minister responsibility to others.

This brings us back to the question with which this chapter began.

Do those responsible for the priesthood want to encourage individ-

102



ual development, or does this seem too alien to the objective of

maintaining institutional integrity? This is a complex question which

needs careful reflection. Is the priesthood a profession that can

contain and express the personalities of psychologically growing

persons? Or is it, in view of institutional needs, a profession in which

the man who can shape himself to its demands is the person who is

desirable? Only an answer to this question can determine how much

growth through responsible freedom one wishes to introduce into

the lives of American priests.

The final recommendation of this report is to extend and continue

research on the priesthood and other aspects of Church life. It is

clear that a more profound understanding of the underlying psycho-

logical truths of the present condition of the Church can only be

beneficial to it. In the course of the present research, the investiga-

tors identified many areas which need more in-depth analysis. To

mention a few:

1. A study in depth of retired priests whose problems are only

now beginning to appear. The difficulties of retirement are many.

There seem to be special ones regarding personal identity. Here

increased knowledge would be especially helpful.

2. In-depth interviews with a number of resigned priests would

enable the Church to have a much better understanding of this

serious problem.

3. An in-depth study of seminarians would be instructive, espe-

cially in the light of the responsibility they will bear for the Church

in the future.

4. A continued program of research on pastoral questions

coupled with continued dialogue between researchers and Church

officials.

103