This coming Thursday, there will be a Press Conference at the Holy See Press Office to present a document of the Congregation for Catholic Education "Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood."The speakers at the press conference will be Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Archbishop Jean-Louis Brugues, Secretary of the Congregation, and Fr Carlo Bresciani, a psychologist and a consultor to the Congregation who has written on bioethics and sexual morality.
Here is the original (Italian) announcement in the Vatican Bollettino. And here is the Catholic News Services story.
CNS reports that the Congregation has been working on this document for at least six years and notes that the pyschological testing of candidates for the priesthood is a controversial issue at the Vatican.
I would agree that some sort of psychological evaluation of candidates if a fairly obvious necessity but I'm nervous about the use of psychometric testing. Many years ago, I actually did a degree in psychology (joint with philosophy) at Oxford. From that time, I picked up a skepticism about the validity and methodology of psychometric testing.
The book "After Asceticism" which I reviewed in the Jan-Feb 2008 Faith Magazine, criticised the use of a secular "therapeutic mentality" and referred favourable to the work of the Catholic psychologist, Dom Thomas Verner Moore in the first half of the 20th century. It seems to me that the "therapeutic mentality" still influences some of the use of psychology in the Church, and that we have not adequately taken account of the scathing indictment by William Coulson of the work that he participated in with Carl Rogers. (See for example:Carl Rogers and the IHM Nuns: Sensitivity Training, Psychological Warfare and the "Catholic Problem" and "We overcame their traditions, we overcame their faith."
For various reasons, then, I look forward to reading the new document from the Congregation for Catholic Education.
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The door pictured above is in the entrqance to the Vatican Information Services office on the Via Dei Corridori. We were staying at the Hotel Bramante just off this road last week and the restaurant just across the road was the Osteria San Pietro at which we lunched one day. I just noticed in the photo that not only do you have a clear view of part of the colonnade of the Piazza San Pietro, but also of the window from which the Holy Father gives his Angelus address each Sunday.
18 comments:
I had heard anecdotally, concerns about psychological testing of candidates for the Priesthood, but nothing that suggested the devastation described in the links you provided.
What other weapon could have annihilated the religious orders who were involved with greater effect?
I too would be interested in seeing the new document from the Congregation for Catholic Education when it comes.
How did the Church produce so many saintly priests over the years without the aid of psychologists? To me their presence in the Church, either as co-operators in discerning vocations, or as "counsellors" or as "healers" has always seemed a usurpation of priestly and episcopal responsibility and charism. The discernment of spirits, the gift of counsel and the cure of souls belongs to the church.
The fathers of the Church used to rail at those schismatics who set up rival altars, but here we have a rival priesthood to whom our ordained bishops and priests have ceded quite a lot of responsibility. It is truly a scandal, is it not?
Here in the states we have had many dioceses go bankrupt precisely because our bishops accepted certificates of cure from psychologists and psychiatrists for priests who were in fact not cured of "pedophilia", but who were once again entrusted with priestly responsibility on their sayso.
Perhaps i am mistaken, but my understanding is that we are presently so daft as to require those who ask for exorcism to undergo psychiatric examination. To me this seems ironic beyond belief.
Fasting, prayer, grace, holy catechesis, sacraments. the gifts of the Holy Spirit- we have been equipped with all we need to produce and discern vocations, to counsel seminarians and priests, and to cure those who go astray.
Eliminating psychology and psychiatry from our armamentarium would have the wonderful effect of throwing us back on the Lord and causing us to discover that the holy gifts with which He has entrusted us are thoroughly up to the job of providing us with a holy and effective priesthood. MHO
Remind me...did Jesus run St. Peter through "psychological testing?"
In the book "Goodbye Good Men" re: what was wrong with seminaries and vocations in the US FAR too many orthodox men were thrown out of the seminary if the Freudian weenies didn't think the individual was "gay friendly enough" blah-blah -- in some cases men were targeted because they believed in traditional things like adoration and rosary etc. in preference to whatever enneagram the huckster BS artists tried to sell down the pike. Sometimes the psychiatrist was a known anti-catholic.
Note so much a "crisis in vocations" as having people who wish to undermine the church sabotage good vocations.
Anyone who does not share your scepticism about psychometric tests needs to take a quick trip to Amazon and look through the hundreds of books and courses to help one cheat - sorry - "practise" or "familiarise". In my career I have taken several - successfully - to obtain promotion. I always "modified" my answers. Anyone with well-developed analytical/language skills can spot most of the rephrased questions. The best technique to use is similar to "method acting" - just think yourself inside the character you are trying to portray and stick to the middle emotive range, except where you have identified specific characteristics in the job spec, where particular attributes are highlighted.
Alternatively it could be that I am completely wrong in my analysis, and that it is my frequent recourse to the wonderful St Joseph of Cupertino that does the trick.
I was subject to some unofficial at a seminary by a monsignor and rector of the establishment. The rector was later convicted for raping an adolescent. What intrigued me was the number of character witness said rector was able to call upon at his trial and it convinced me that the Church is run on a "who you know basis". This feature overrides all testing processes including psychological testing of potential seminarians. In other words the entire process is rigged in favour of well connected candidates. Not a complaint just an observation. Needless to say, in my case, I knew nobody and got the hell out of there.
I think you have good reason to be skeptical about psychometric testing, Father, especially relating to the priesthood or religious life. The case of the Immaculate Heart nuns in 1960s California should be a lesson, not to mention some of the ‘testing’ that went on in US seminaries over past decades.
As with surveys or polls, tests can be slanted by the designer, not to mention defeated by the taker who knows how to ‘manipulate’ the responses. Here in the US we have seen how this was done in treating priests involved in The Scandal…
Psychotherapy is one field about which I have always had reservations. I once heard it described as like a homeowner who has a problem with his house. The psychotherapist takes the house apart piece by piece and then tells the owner to put it back together himself. That may be an exaggeration, but I think it is apt.
I trust the document will provide guidelines that are Faith-based and not derived solely from secular psychology.
having been through 2 psychological evaluations it will be good to see what the Holy See says on this issue... Hmmm
Are we to take it for granted that this is the final phase in the campaign to get the "straights" out of the seminaries once and for all?
For me there's a big problem with the whole concept of "vocation". The old concept of vocation meant a calling to the religious life, not to the priesthood per se. A genuine, sacramental understanding of the priesthood would imply that a priest is a layman who has been ordained - nothing more and nothing less. In my experience it is priests who are "ordained laymen" who have the best understanding of what it is to be a priest because they have the best understanding of what it is to be a lay person trying to live a Christian life in the real world. For me the very worst sort of priest is one with some mystical concept of "vocation" that means, in other words, that he would have been psychologically unsuited to any job outside of a monastery or hermitage.
OK, I'm probably not putting this very well. But the big distinction in the Church shouldn't be between the lay state and the ordained state but between the secular state and the religious. That is where the genuine relevance of "vocation" - and possibly "psychological testing" should come in. Neither pychology nor wishful thinking about vocations will identify who should and who should not be an ordained minister of God.
Fr. Tim,
I wouldn't mind so much if seminaries used psychological testing that fully reflects the Catholic understanding of the human person as being both body and soul, made in the image and likeness of God, responsive to God's grace and destined for eternal life, but with a fallen nature, and used these as the starting points for evaluation.
Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of credulous deference to (or is it dissenting agreement with?) secular psychological theories and methods which are none of the above, but instead are materialistic, monistic, sex-obsessed, see man as no more than a clever animal and leave no room for the spiritual.
I too look forward to the Holy See's guidance on this matter.
After Asceticism is particularly good in identifying the therapeutic mentality - with the consequent identification of holiness with "wholeness" and "affective maturity" - as the source of the mischief. As you say in your review these are "ambiguous ideals which could co-exist with what were previously considered mortal sins".
In contrast, someone like St Alphonsus, who (arguably) could be said to have "lacked affective maturity" throughout his life, is proof that the most eminent sanctity can co-exist alongside some fairly deep psychological fault lines.
But as St Paul says:
"The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor 1:25-30).
I have always felt that psychological tests would have barred Ignatius from the Jesuits, John of the Cross from the Carmelites and Francis from the Franciscans.
Father, reading about the methods used by Rogers, Coulson and their facilitators in America to destroy the Catholic Church there is just horrific. I would be very grateful, Father, if you are in a position to do so, to let the Faithful know how far have similar psychological initiatives been used, or are used, in England and Wales ? Also, how far is non-directive psychology used in seminaries today ? Is the reluctance of the bishops of England and Wales, generally speaking, to support families and schools in life and family matters a strong indication of their own training in psychology, leading them to support the government's policies more than witnessing to the truths of the Catholic Church ? Do you think that the Freemasons, one of whose aims is to destroy the Catholic Church, are behind the psychological testing of candidates for the priesthood ? If devout candidates for the priesthood fail their psychological testing and are then sent away from the seminaries, the future of the Church in these lands becomes weakened considerably, doesn't it ?
I am currently reading a book by Fr Michael J Cunningham SDB entitled "Within & Without", having been asked by Don Bosco Publications to review the book.
A couple of quotes from his book would seem to me to be rather apt in the context of this discussion:
1) "Postmodernism knows what it is against; it is much less sure what it is for." Ch4,p35
2) "We have lost the ability to forgive and our anger is projected outwards." Ch5,p45
3) "Our humanity is full of limitations and we need to embrace those limitations." Ch5,p48
4) "It took me some time to realise that the poverty I needed to address was within myself."
5) "Poverty expresses our intimacy with our inner self; celibacy empowers us for intimacy with others; and obedience moves us into intimacy with the world."
and finally:
6) "...the quest for God...the basic human quest...is a journey from the head to the heart."
The meesage I took away from reading this book was the need for us to embrace all who feel they may have a vocation, and allow them the time and support necessary to discern their own way forward.
The propadeutic year being offered to english speaking seminarians at Valladolid in Spain seems to me a very good step in the right direction.
Dear Father Tim
A 'Jungian' psychologist once suggested abortion to me as a solution to our expanding family's lack of space and shortage of money.
Thank God I never listened to this advice as yesterday my youngest son was 18.
Radovan Karadzic was a psychiatrist.
I personally have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act,and was falsely diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (I have never suffered any symptoms of this terrible illness such as hearing voices etc and the psychiatrist has since been 'retired' for his error in diagnosis after the suppressed Regina v Hobson 1991 trial manuscript re-emerged in 2000).
Eight years later Michael Wearing,BCSP's Neighbourhood Services Co-ordinator for the London Borough of Bexley,has returned the hard evidence relating to my high profile FARE JUSTICE NOT VENGEANCE FOCUS 1991-2008 : IPCC REF 2005/005639 : COURT REF CO/8897/2006 : MPS REF PC/2571/07 case for the defence against NF/BNP entry-ism into London's Sporting/Planning Arena,which was originally backed up by a malevolent prosecution by CID Greenwich after the phone call made by Steve Taylor of the TSG.
Michael Wearing's admission,as BCSP's Neighbourhood Services Co-ordinator,that I had "been through a lot" meant a great deal to me.
I personally defeated Sir Ian Blair the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis & the IPCC,on FARE Human and Civil Rights issues on the 28th February 2007 in the Royal Courts of Justice before the Honourable Mr Justice Goldring.
I look forward to hearing from the MPS Assistant Commissioner Robert Quick MBA now that Sir Ian Blair has at last resigned as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.
Our Lady of the Rosary pray for us Amen
Neville - I am not against some kind of psychological assessment of candidates provided that those who do the assessing are trustworthy. Obviously we need to leave behind any nonsense that suggest that "devotion" is some kind of psychological problem.
However, it is important to ensure that those who are accepted for training are reasonably balanced and mature people. The question is how best to assess this.
Francis (above) puts it superbly.The problem is that some of the "experts" employed by the church in screening programmes have agenda far removed from the aim of providing pastors of the people of God. Indeed, the church has bowed to the neo-marxist agenda of many within the educational & social work lobbies. Although the church has had a few problems, they are fewer than those faced by scandals among police & social work personnel. The sin the church has committed in the minds of the secular establishment is that of opposing abortion and the feminist lobby sees this as payback time. Of course, as Fr Tim says, we should seek those candidates who are well balanced people but most seminary staff can do this and medical help should only bee sought where this is in doubt. Not that psychologists are consulted, not psychiatrists who are doctors as well. I also agree that many saints would not pass the "screening" offered by some secular practitioners. Perhaps some of the advisers need vetting as many become therapists as they are somewhat mixed up themselves!
You can read about the advice on this link to Zenit news service. As presented here, the advice seems quite measured but one would have to be careful of the common sense of the practitioners: http://www.zenit.org/article-24116?l=english
Yes well I wonder how well balanced the Cure of Ars , St. Francis of Assisi, St. Joseph of Cupertino, St. Therese of Lisieux, Bl. Angela of Foligno, and so many others were and how they would go through the tests of today. Yes I do agree that a certain amount of testing is necessary, but I also know people who got through the psychological testing and went into religious life and a few months later went off the balance altogether. Personally I think the best test is to have people live in for at least three months and have a medical done and a basic psychological analysis. And take it from there. So many vocations have been lost by an overdose of psychology. And some religious orders and relgious individuals could do with tests on their orthodoxy to Catholic values. I think that would be worth screening.
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