Psychological Temperament and the Catholic Priesthood: An Empirical Enquiry Among Priests in Italy

Abstract

This study draws on psychological type theory that has its origins in the work of Jung (1971) and psychological temperament theory as proposed by Keirsey and Bates (1978) to explore the psychological preferences and profile of Catholic priests serving in Italy. Data provided by 155 priests demonstrated an overwhelming preference for sensing and judging (SJ at 76%), followed by intuition and feeling (NF at 12%), intuition and thinking (NT at 8%), and sensing and perceiving (SP at 5%). In their study of styles of religious leadership, Oswald and Kroeger (1988) characterise the SJ preference as 'the conserving serving pastor'. The implications of these findings are discussed for leadership strengths and weaknesses in the Catholic Church.

Exploring the factor structure of the Francis Psychological Type Scales among a sample of Anglican clergy in England

“…, 101 Church of England clergy engaged in ministry as full-time hospital chaplains(Francis, Hancocks, Swift, & Robbins, 2009), 1,004 Methodist ministers in Britain(Burton, Francis, & Robbins, 2010), 231 Anglican clergymen serving in the Church in Wales(Francis, Littler, & Robbins, 2010),39 Local Ordained Ministers serving in the Church of England (Francis & Holmes, 2011), 561 clergy serving in the Presbyterian Church (USA) (Francis, Robbins, & Wulff, 2011), 529 clergymen and 518 clergywomen ordained in the Anglican Church in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2007 (Village, 2011b), 164 male apostolic network leaders (Kay, Francis, & Robbins, 2011), 154 leaders within the Newfrontiers network of churches (Francis, Robbins, & Ryland, 2012), 144 clergywomen serving in Local Ordained Ministry in the Church of England (Francis, Robbins, & Jones, 2012), 306 Catholic priests serving in Australia (Francis, Powell, & Robbins, 2012), 56 clergymen and 79 clergywomen serving in Local Ordained Ministry in the Church of England (Francis & Village, 2012), 845 lay church leaders in Australia, 55 Catholic priests serving in the USA(Burns, Francis, Village, & Robbins, 2013), 168 bishops, serving or retired, in the Church of England(Francis, Whinney, & Robbins, 2013), 155 volunteer Christian youth leaders in Northern Ireland(Hamill & Francis, 2013), 236 readers serving in the Church of England(Francis, Jones, & Robbins, 2014), 89 clergymen and 26 clergymen serving in the Reformed Church in America(Royle, Norton, & Larkin, 2015), 117 Singaporean Pentecostal pastors(Robbins & Kay, 2015), 155 Catholic priests serving in Italy(Francis & Crea, 2015a), 268 Anglican clergymen serving in the Church in Wales(Payne & Lewis, 2015), 120…”

Personality Traits of Church Planters and Other Church Leaders in Europe (II)

“…Psychological profiling is increasingly used in the context of religious professionals (cf. Piedmont 1999), for example to assess their spirituality (Kosek 2000;Strawn, Alexander 2008;Francis 2009), vocation (Galea 2010;Sunardi 2014), leadership style (Krekeler 2010;Francis, Crea 2015), career success (Machel 2006;Miner 2007;Joseph et al 2011;Nortomaa 2016), or to explain theological differences (Burton et al 2010;Francis 2013;Village 2013). As far as we know, our 2017 study was the first to use psychological profiling to explore the entrepreneurial dimension of religious leadership (Foppen et al 2017).…”

Psychological type and personal wellbeing among Catholic priests in Italy: a study in positive psychology

“…This finding is of interest for two reasons. First, all five recent studies of the psychological type profiles of Catholic priests in the UK (Craig, Duncan, & Francis, 2006), in Australia , in the USA (Burns, Francis, Village, & Robbins, 2013), and in Italy (Francis & Crea, 2015a) reported higher proportions of introverts in the priesthood. Second, it is reasonable to posit that much of the activity associated with the work of priests may favour the extraverted orientation, involving an outward-facing engagement with people and managing a wide range of social interactionsthe kind of work that may energise and revitalise extraverts, but that may drain and exhaust introverts.…”

“…Recent studies within this tradition include studies among Catholic priests in the UK (Craig, Duncan, & Francis, 2006), in Australia , in the USA (Burns, Francis, Village, & Robbins, 2013), and in Italy (Francis & Crea, 2015a.…”