TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC BISHOP

MARY SHEEHAN AND FRANK J. KOBLER

Loyola University of Chieago

PROBLEM Psychological studies of the American bishop are nonexistent, although many

studies have been reported for other religious groups(*-‘. 6. 1 , ‘3). As an introductory study of the bishops, the present study compared the psychological development of the bishops with that of priests.’ It explored connections between psychological development and demographic variables as these relate to bishops. And thirdly, it summarized clinical impressions based on the responses of the bishops to the instrument used, The Loyola Sentence Completion Blank for Clergymen (LSCBC)

It was hypothesized that the bishops would score more positively than the priests on overall psychological development as measured by LSCBC total scores, and in particular on the subscales Self-Perception, Church-Faith, Priesthood, and Job Satisfaction. The more positive scoring on these scales was predicted because of the greater job satisfaction that the bishops indicated in the NORC study“) and because of their role and position in the Church organization. Carey’s(2) study of morale determinants among Chicago priests corroborated similar organizational

in showing that “perceived influence in determining policy” is a cor- relate of higher morale. In the priest population studied by Carey this factor, in addition to ‘(value seen in celibacy,’’ accounted for 30% of the variance on morale. The bishops clearly value celibacy (1, p . 2 6 6 ) ; hence the expectation that morale would be higher for them than for priests and that they would score more positively on the subscales related to job and church.

The bishops were not expected to do better on the Interpersonal Relations and Psychosexual Maturity subscales. Negative correlations between religious con- servatism and self-actualizing tendencies have been reported (3, while Murphy (lo) indicated positive correlations between a measure of self-actualization (Personal Orientation Inventory) and the Interpersonal Relations and Psychosexual Maturity subscales of the LSCBC. The prediction that followed when these findings were combined with the conservatism of the bishops“, p . 94) was that the bishops would score less favorably than the priests on Interpersonal Relations and Psychosexual Maturity.

Also tested were some comparisons of a more limited scope, viz., the bishops are more guarded about psychosexual development than priests. Like the priests, they do show preference for their mothers over their fathers. They have a more favorable reaction to their first assignment. They are more achievement-oriented, more actively-oriented, and more aggressive interpersona!ly than are priests.

Subgroups of bishops were compared around the following assumptions. Bis- hops with some training in Rome and/or Canon Law have a better psychological adjustment in job-related areas of their lives than do bishops not so trained. Ordi- naries2 of dioceses, in contrast to auxiliary bishops, show better psychological development in these same areas. Overall psychological development is more positive for bishops who work in small or medium-size dioceses and for those who live with a t least one other person.

METHOD Subjects. From the 298 American bishops (254 active and 44 retired) included

on the official mailing list of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops3, 191

1“Priests” when used to designate a group in this study refers to priests who are not bishops. *The ordinary of a diocese is the bishop who has jurisdiction in the diocese; other bishops within

aThe list was current for March 1972. Archbishops and cardinals are included in this listing,

(16 1.

a diocese (auxiliary bishops) have delegated jurisdiction.

as are some members of religious communities who have the rank of bishop.

542 Journal of Clinical Psychology, J u l y , 1976, Vol. 32, No. 3.

responded in some way to the mailed request that they complete a data sheet and the LSCBC. Of the 161 active bishops who responded, Sl (327, of all active bishops) submitted usable returns. These returns provide the data upon which this study is based.4

The mean age of the respondents was 57; the mean number of years ordained 31; and the mean number of years as a bishop was 9. Ordinaries of dioceses and auxiliary bishops were representcd proportionately among the respondents. Bishops responded three times more frequently than did cardinals and archbishops ( x2 (1) = 6.77, p < .Ol). Midwestern and western bishops responded significantly more frequently than did the bishops from the southern and eastern dioceses (xz (1) = 4.65, p < .05). Small (1-100 priests) and medium-size (101-200) dioceses were represented twice as frequently as large (201-500) and three times as frequently as extra large dioceses (over 500) among the respondents. Education, training, and pre- vious job experiences covered a wide range. Bachelor’s degrees had been earned by 23% of the bishops before they entered the seminary. Twenty-seven percent had a Licentiate or Doctorate in theology, and 31y0 had a degree in Canon Law. Thirty-six percent had a Master’s degree, 10% a Doctor’s or Professional degree, and 32% had studied in Rome. Most (757,) had served as assistant pastors, and a majority (59%) had been pastors. Other frequently mentioned job experiences were Tribunal or Chancery Office work, Chaplain, and Seminary work.

An autobiographical data sheet and the LSCBC were used. The former requested information about age, ethnic background, job history, loca- tion, residence situation, birth order, and education. The LSCBC asked the bishop to respond quickly, expressing his real feelings, to 72 sentence stems that relate to the areas of Self-perception, Interpersonal Relations, Psychosexual Maturity, Church-Faith, Priesthood, and Job Satisfaction. Each of the six areas was repre- sented by 12 stems. An example for each of the respective categories follows: “I . . .”; “Trusting other people . . .”; “Sexual Relations . . .”; “TO me, prayer . . .”; “For me, being a priest a t this time . . .”; “Earning my living . . . .

T H E LSCBC was used to study the bishops for several reasons. Reliability and validity had been established with clergymen. Sheehan(15), who used a scoring technique similar to Rotter and Rafferty ( I 4 ) , reported interscorer reliability that ranged from r = .96 on total score to .84 on the Self-perception scale. Validity as measured by biserial correlations was .62 when sentence completion total scores were correlated with MMPI indicators of adjustment, .66 when correlated with psychologists’ ratings of adjustment, and .86 when correlated with the combined criteria of MMPI and psychologists’ ratings. No systematic bias in the scoring was found when the same scoring manual was used to score the bishops’ response^.^ Further, the sentence completion technique has been used successfully to differentiate levels of psychological adjustment with many types of homogeneous groups. For example, Sheridan and Kobler (16) found it a valid instrument to differentiate seminarians in need of psychological counseling from those not in such need; cross- validations of their results also were reported(5- ’J). I n relation to reported studies of several projective techniques, the sentence completion technique is rated the

‘Some data are also available on the 80 active bishops who sent non-usable responses and on the 30 retired bishops who responded in some way. The priests whose scores on the LSCBC were com- pared with those of the bishops were a sample (N = 236) whose mean age was 45. The sample was selected to avoid population biases, e.g., neither old nor young was overrepresented; location, size of diocese, and membership in religious community also were taken into account when this sample

T w o P b D . clinical psychologists scored 30 of the bishops’ protocols according to the general scoring rinciples that were used to obtain the examples for the scoring manual used in the clergyman study. %he responses on whose ratings they a reed then were given to a third clinical psychologist to compare with the examples in the manual. S8e found that 92% of the 646 stems scored identically by the first two psychologists were identical with or “agreed more” than “disagreed more” with the examples in the scoring manual. Thus no systematic bias due to the fact that the scoring manual examples were derived from priests’ rather than bishops’ responses was apparent.

Instruments.

11

ww drawn(6, PP. 68446).

Bishops Considered Psychologically 543

most reliable and valid‘ll). Finally, comparable data from this test were available for a national sample of priests(6). 6

Procedure. The bishops’ responses were obtained by mail. Code numbers were used to identify responses so that confidentiality was maintained. The LSCBC Scoring Manual, which consists of general scoring principles and empirically derived scoring samples, was used for the scoring of the protocols.

RESULTS Bishops vs. Priests. The bishops showed a more positive psychological develop-

ment than the priests on all of the subtests of the LSCBC (see Table 1). All differences were significant a t or beyond the .05 level. On the subscales that correlated more highly in Murphy’s study with self-actualization (e.g., Psychosexual Maturity and Interpersonal Relations), the differences were less than the differences on the other subtests, but these differences did favor the bishops. TABLE 1. MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS OF LSCBC TOTAL AND SUBTEST SCORES: BISHOPS

AND PRIESTS

Test Bishops (N = 81) x SD x SD Means

Priests (N = 236) t Value on

Total Self

257.68 15.67 269.05 20.36 5.20*** 45.47 2.45 47.25 3.93 4 . SO***

Interpersonal Relations 42.73 4.32 43.87 4.74 2.10*

Psychosexual Maturity 45.35 3.95 46.33 4.48 1.89*

Church-Faith 40.19 3.77 42.18 4.97 3.83*** Priesthood 41.14 4.33 45.10 5.09 6.85*** Job Satisfaction 42.82 4.33 44.33 5.17 2.55**

Note: Lower scores indicate better psychological development on the LSCBC. * p < .05; **p < .01; ‘**p < .001

When total LSCBC scores for bishops and priests were compared using the cut-off score that in an earlier study(15) identified 89% of the adequately adjusted priests and 86% of the inadequately adjusted ones, the bishops more frequently were well adjusted. Eighty-four percent of the bishops were in the adequate ad- justment category, whereas 64% of the priests showed adequate adjustment ( x2 (1) = 12.4, p < .001).

Guardedness with regard to psychosexual matters was more prominent in the bishops than in the priests. Guardedness was measured by the number of neutral extra-long responses, and omissions given to the 12 items on the Psychosexual Maturity scale. Sixty-two percent of the bishops’ responses qualified as guarded, whereas 43% of the priests’ responses qualified ( R (00) = 2.96, p < .OO5).’

7’-tests derived from scores on the items “My mother . . .” and “My father. . .” indicated that the bishops favor their mothers over their fathers ( t (77) = 5.39, p < .005) and that the bishops’ favoring of mother over father is significantly greater than the priests’ ( t (00) = 3.03, p .005). “R4y first assignment . . .” was reacted to more positively by bishops than priests ( t (00) = 2.64, p < .01). Finally, the bishops showed significantly more achievement orientation than pricsts when

V h e O@cial Catholic Directory, 1972, was used to obtain information about the non-responding bishnps.

’The finding, when joined with the bishops’ better showing on t,he straight scores comparison, raises some questions about the use of LSCBC scores apart from additional analysis of them.

544 Journal of Clinical Psychology, J u l y , 1976, Vol. 32, N o . 3.

the groups were compared on number of positive responses to the stem, “When the odds arc against me . . .” (xz (1) = 9.27, p < .01).

The bishops Kcre not more active or more aggressive interpersonally than the priests. The active vs. passive orientation was determined by responses to the stems, “I am best able to . . .” and “I feel powerful when. . .” The degree of ag- gression was obtained from responses to the stem, “If someone gets in my way. . .”

A final comparison between bishops and priests showed clearly the locus of good feelings for the bishops us. the priests. A discriminant analysis based on the two groups’ scores on the six subscales of the LSCBC showed that thrcc of the scales in combination (Self-Perception, Priesthood, and Job Satisfaction) identified correctly 65% of the priests and 65% of the bishops (a cut-off score of .42 on the translated scores was used as the best discriminator).

Subgroups of bishops differed significantly on LSCBC scores only across one variable. Those trained in Rome and/or Canon Law scored less positively on Church-related and job-related subscales than did those bishops not so trained (totals from the Church-Faith, Priesthood, and Job Satisfaction scales used: t (79) = 2.05, p < .05). When ordinaries of dioceses were compared with auxiliary bishops on these same subscale totals, their mean scores were almost identical. Nor was the better psychological development for bishops in smaller us. larger dioceses borne out. Bishops in large dioceses scored more positively on overall psychological development, but the difference was not significant ( t (78) = 1.26). Living situation when looked at in terms of “live alone,” “live with one other,” “live with small group” (up to nine), or “live with largc group” did not correlate significantly with psychological development.

Good development and poor development showed themselves in some specific patterns when the bishops’ protocols were examined for content and style. Good development was seen in those bishops who exhibited an alive, positive thrust to life, who showed themselves in touch with other people and with their own feelings, and who had incorporated the religious- faith part of their lives in an intrinsic, esscntial way. A brief description of one such bishop follows:s

This is a profoundly human man who is concerned deeply and seriously for the welfare of his priests and his people. He is unpretentious, loving and caring. His person is marked by great openness and consistent friendliness. His trusting nature has sometimes led to his being taken advantage of. I n religion his most important relationship is to Jesus and secondarily to God. He is a strong realist who sees clearly the faults of the Church without thereby taking from his love for Her. His is a practical common sense, down-to-earth quality that endears him to others. Yet he attracts to himself people of sophisti- cation and talent. He has experienced and he treasures close human love with men and with women. He is an open, tolerant, and accepting man. He easily allows others the freedom and independence that he prizes for himself. He would score low on authoritariansim despite his position of authority. He is not above enjoying the perquisities of his office. A sound sense of humor helps him in his daily life. He has derived great strength from a close relationship with his family. He loves the physical things in life and takes delight from his physical self. He is very humanly and spiritually close to his priests and works strenuously on their behalf. He prides himself on his preaching and is very probably a great success. He is distinctly liberal, open, and flexible in his orientation. He encourages and desires change in the forms of religion while

“A psychologist who analyzed each bishop’s sentence completion responses apart from any other information about the bishop developed a description like this for each of the 81 bishops. His descrip- tions were matched correctly with the sentence completion protocols by another psychologist in 92.5y0 of the cases. Forty test protocols and personality descriptions were selected randomly from the 81 bishops and anonymously matched in this manner to arrive a t this percentage of agreement.

Bishops us. Bishops.

Clinical Impressions of Bishops.

Bishops Considered Psychologically 545

adhering to the basic substance of religion and the Church. He has few hang- ups and would be a marvelous man to know.

A very limited number of bishops who showed poor development tended toward obsessiveness, dissatisfaction with their job, self-punishment and/or suspicious thinking. A descriptive example of one of the bishops who exhibited poor psy- chological development follows :

This is an unhappy and emotionally disturbed man. The only really positive thing in his life is his priesthood, and there is some question in his mind about that. Almost everything he does in the way of work is a difficulty or a problem. His greatest strength lies in his faith and in the performance of the simple tasks of his priesthood, such as preaching. He is sexually confused and dis- turbed, both in terms of personal impulses and in regard to such an issue as celibacy in the priesthood. Whenever any difficulties arise that involve people, he does his best to avoid them. He makes people ill a t ease by his own personal conflicts, uncertainties, emotional malaise and ineffectiveness. The pressure of his work is almost intolerable to him. He most prefers to be alone, and he is often lonely. He is quite unhappy about his role as bishop and with the attitudes and feelings of other bishops, whom he tends to think of as tyran- nical. Often he would like to be free of his tasks and responsibilities as a priest and as a bishop. He is fearful of making mistakes, particularly in his present assignment, which he dislikes intensely. He feels unloved and unappreciated a disproportionate part of the time. Sometimes he wonders if the priesthood was the thing for him. He misses love, closeness, and the intimacy of human contact. He would be a much happier man if he were relieved of his job and his responsibilities. A close counseling relationship with someone whom he could trust and upon whom he could depend would be helpful to him.

Though some bishops showed very good and others very poor development, the great majority of bishops evidenced neither very positive nor very negative development. Rather they clustered around several psychological foci that were well summarized by the bishop who responded to the stem, “I . . .” in this way: I “must be human in my divine responsibilities.” Foci picked up by this response are the “must” or should context, the obligation to be h u m a n , the emphasis on divine or God-related motivation in their lives, and the reaction to responsibilities. As a group the bishops tend to operate out of a sense of duty or a “must” context. They have difficulties with many of the feeling aspects of life. The “must” context exhibits itself in several ways. The bishops frequently find their greatest happiness in meeting their obligations. These obligations seem to express themselves pri- marily in terms of work. Thus the bishops show a strong investment in work and tend to measure themselves and their success primarily in terms of the work that they accomplish.

This sense of duty toward work gives the bishops strong motivation to ac- complish things. Related to this duty orientation is a certain colorlessness and limitation of creativity that is evident in the majority of bishops’ responses, of which only a few indicated strong feeling tones. The bishops do not see themselves as having done very much on their own initiative or as being involved significantly in the selection of their own work.

As a group, the bishops are conscious of wishing good things for their fellow priests and indeed for all human beings. They sincerely wish happiness for people. However, they keep their feelings a t a distance. If they feel something, they often operate out of a “must” or LLshould.’’ The strongest feelings that were expressed on the sentence completion test were gratitude and anger. The gratitude was a positive response for all that they feel that they have been given; the anger was directed primarily a t the author of the sentence completion test and at prlests and nuns who have “withdrawn their promises,” i.e., left religious life.

546 Journal of Clinical Psychology, J u l y , 1976, Vol. 32, No . 3.

Thc divine responsibilities that the bishops conceive of as theirs are indeed awesome to many of them. When asked to complete a statement that concerned the most serious crisis of their lives, 23% of them said that it revolved around their appointment as a bishop. Many of them respond very positively to the divine aspect of their work (representing Christ, shepherding souls, e tc . ) . However, many more seem to relate the job of being bishop to such things as interpersonal conflicts, rejection of their authority, and the need to correct people or to say no to them. The bishops as a group of men are generally non-creative, somewhat passive, hard-work- ing, well-wishing, and religious idealists. They can be expected to have difficulty when they are placed in a position that they regard as one in which they must set limits, or one in which they must coordinate the activity of others, or in a position in which they have the last word. Many of the bishops seem to conceive of their role as a very powerful one, while they as persons feel much less powerful.

DISCUSSION In general, the bishops are considerably better adjusted than the priests.

Apart from the process of selection that would be operating to explain this dif- ference, the bishops have acquired power, affection, respect, and generally a satis- fying kind of work. There are a very limited number of bishops who are making a marginal or poor psychological adjustment. They appear to be unsuited to their jobs. This appears to be not only a function of the requirements of the job, but also, and perhaps more critically, a function of the personal characteristics and level of adjustment that existed prior to their entrance into the episcopacy or even prior t o their entrance into the priesthood. Bishops who come from a strong, close, sup- portive family group and who have maintained this support and closeness tend to be happy and effective persons and bishops.

He invests himself heavily in administering his diocese and does this efficiently. However, he complains of this heavy administrative burden and wishes for more time to be with his priests and people. He is gravely concerned about the crisis in vocations, but does not appear to know what to do about it. The bishop’s strong investment in his role fulfillment is related closely to his commitment to the hierarchical structure of the Church. He feels bound by this structure, and he is fearful of taking any initiative and of being creative even though he possesses the impulse and talent to do so.

Though intellectually bright and highly articulate, the bishops are not innova- tive in the areas of religious experience or theology. They are not a highly mystical or prayerful group. Almost all of them have a solidly grounded faith with firm convictions about the after life. They think of the sacrifice of the Mass as central in their personal religious life, and they appear to welcome and enjoy preaching and teaching. Most of these bishops have difficulty with individual prayer.

The traditional stereotype of authoritarianism does not apply to the great majority of these men, and they resent its application to them. They find great dif- ficulty in ordering things to be done. Most generally, they are dependent on their institutional settings. They look for and are grateful for support and direction. It is a myth that the Catholic Church in this country is a monolithic, authoritarian entity that gets things done autocratically. No group of men appears more free to do as they please and, in general, do so than the priests of the United States, if one is to judge the matter from reading what their bishops write.

As would be anticipated, there are some really outstanding men among the American bishops. They may be characterized by their immense drive, their strong social consciousness, their great confidence in and identification with the mission of the Church, and their great personal warmth and concern with the individuals who come under their care and jurisdiction. I n many others, this personal warmth and concern is notably absent. Most of the bishops tend to lead happy, busy lives. They are seldom lonely. Most of them have had personal difficulties with the

The life of the bishop very definitely is organized around his role.

Bishops Considered Psychologically 547

problems of human intimacy that the acceptance of celibacy usually brings in its wake. For some, only a distant, ritualized relationship with other people, especially with women, is noteworthy. For most of the bishops the gratification provided by their own work and by their own role has more than compensated for this loss.

SUMMARY Of the 254 active bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in America, 81 (32%)

presented usable returns to a mailed request to complete a data sheet and a semi- projective instrument, The Loyola Sentence Completion Blank for Clergymen (LSCBC). Their responses to this test were scored according to ’& empirically based manual. The responses were analyzed further item by item and protocol by protocol to construct a clinical description of the American bishop. When compared with a national sample of priests (N = 236), the bishops showed better psycho- logical development as measured by total LSCBC scores ( t (00) = 5.20, p < .OOl) and by each of the subtest scores : Self-Perception, Interpersonal Relations, Psycho- sexual Maturity, Church-Faith, Priesthood, Job Satisfaction - p < .05 or less. In general, the bishops are conscientious, duty-bound individuals who feel awed by the responsibilities of their office. They are work-oriented. They defend against the disparity between the power that they attribute to their office and the power that they feel within themselves. They are affable; they like people. They dis- tance their feelings from their conscious, thinking selves. A consequent colorless- ness and limited creativity are apparent. They are optimistic about the future of the Church.

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4. HALL, D. T. and SCHNEIDER, B. A study of work experiences and career growth of Roman Catholic diocesan riests. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University, 1969.

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6. KENNEDY, E. C. and HECKLICR, V. J. The Loyola Psychological Study of the Minzsiry and Life of the American Priest. Washington: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1972.

7. KINNANE, J. F. Career Development for Priests and Religious. Washington: CARA, 1970. 8. KUPST, M. J. Religious liberalism-conservatism and psychological health in a study of the

Roman Catholic priesthood. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Loyola University of Chicago, 1972. 9. MCLAUGHLIN, E. The Loyola Seminarian Sentence Completion Test: A cross validation. Unpublished master’s thesis, Loyola University of Chicago, 1969.

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CARA, 1969. 14. ROTTER, J. B. and RAFFERTY, J. The Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank Manual. New York:

Psychological Corporation, 1950. 15. SHI~CKHAN, M. A. The Loyola Sentence Completion Blank for Clergymen: Construction and

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Unpublished master’s thesis, Loyola University of Chicago, 1972.

Unpublished master’s thesis, Loyola University of Chicago, 1971.