Forgiveness and Religious Faith in Roman Catholic Married Couples

Abstract

Roman Catholic couples (130 couples, ages 24-84), at three churches in a suburban town in the southern U.S., completed a section of the Family Forgiveness Scale and the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire. The factor structure and loadings of forgiveness items differed from those previously reported. Levels of faith and forgiveness were similar between husbands and wives. Faith was correlated with most forgiveness dimensions, and faith and some aspects of forgiveness were related to duration of marriage.

The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire: Assessing Faith Engagement in a Brief and Nondenominational Manner

“…Several studies have conducted factor analytic procedures and have universally found that the SCSRFQ is comprised of one factor [11,[13][14][15]18,19].…”

“…It has been used to predict forgiveness among marital couples [18] as well as among college students [9][10][11][12]21,23,24]. The scale has been used frequently with cancer patient finding that high scores tend to be associated with positive mood, optimism, and hope among this population [13,14].…”

“…Thus, it is unclear exactly how the scale might be used in various diagnostic and treatment facilities as well as in independent clinical practices. Since there is no cost in using the scale and since it was published originally in Pastoral Psychology but has been reprinted in several other outlets [1,16,18], it is impossible to know or to track who is using the scale and in what manner. There is, thus, no tracking mechanism employed to determine how the scale is being used since it is freely available to both professionals and the public for their use.…”

“…While several of these studies were published by the original author of the scale [9][10][11][12] most were not [15][16][17][18][19][20]. Many studies have also been published from researchers from several countries such as Ireland and Germany as well.…”

Personality, cognition, and morbidity in the understanding of paranormal belief

“…Research examining convergent and divergent validity has provided good results (Sherman et al, ; Storch, Roberti, Bravata, & Storch, ). Factor analytic studies have also shown that the questionnaire is comprised of one factor (Batson, Hammond, Shwalb, & Hammond, ; Freiheit, Sonstegard, Schmitt, & Vye, ).…”