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SEMINARY TRAINING ANDPERSONALITY CHANGERichard P. Vaughan S.J. aa Department of Psychology , University of SanFranciscoPublished online: 10 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Richard P. Vaughan S.J. (1970) SEMINARY TRAINING ANDPERSONALITY CHANGE, Religious Education: The official journal of the ReligiousEducation Association, 65:1, 56-59, DOI: 10.1080/0034408700650110

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SEMINARY TRAINING ANDPERSONALITY CHANGE

Richard P. Vaughan, S.J.

Department of Psychology, Universityof San Francisco

Does the location of a seminary make a difference in the student'smental health? Or maybe it's the curriculum.

One of the results of the Second VaticanCouncil has been a re-evaluation of semi-nary training. For centuries, the CatholicChurch separated the seminarian from theenvironment in which he would one daywork, isolated him from his family and at-tempted to educate him in an antisepticallyclean vacuum on the supposition that theseradical measures were needed to protect hisvocation. The Council questioned whethersuch practices were in fact necessary andwhether they were conducive to healthypsychological growth. In final analysis, itstated that the seminarian should "becomeinvolved in normal human activities, havefrequent contact with his family" and gradu-ally "be introduced into pastoral practice byappropriate undertakings."1 In some in-stances, these directives have been imple-mented by moving the seminary to a uni-versity or college campus where the seminar-ian has the opportunity to be in dailycontact with his peers, both male and femaleand to face the typical problems of a collegestudent.

Research studies on traditional seminary

1. Abbott, Walter M., S.J. The Documents ofVatican II. New York: America Press, 1966, p.441.

training are limited, but the few that thereare point in the direction of detrimentalpsychological effects. The psychiatrists, Mc-Allister and VanderVeldt2 made a study of100 hospitalized priests and discovered that77 admitted to having serious emotionalproblems during the seminary years. Theseincluded "severe and continued doubts, se-vere maladjustments, gross problems withauthority, morbid scruples, severe anxiety at-tacks and acute emotional illness." It seemshardly likely that such a large percent mani-fested similar problems before enteringthe seminary. Commenting on these find-ings, Hagmeier and Kennedy3 have observedthat the confining seminary education andpsychological hibernation keeps some semi-narian adolescents, setting the stage for fu-ture problems with authority and faultyrelationships with women. Uneasiness withthe laity, especially women, was a trait mostfrequently noted by McAllister and Vander-

Religious Education

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Vol LXV No 1 Jan-Feb1970

2. McAllister, R. and VanderVeldt, A. Factorsin Mental Illness Among Hospitalized Clergy.Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, CXXXII(January, 1961), p. 84.

3. Hagmaier, George and Kennedy, Eugene C.Psychological Aspects in Seminary Life in JamesM. Lee and Louis J. Putz (Ed.) Seminary Educa-tion in a Time of Change. Notre Dame, Indiana:Fides, 1965, p. 265.

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Richard P. Vaughan 57

Veldt in their population of mentally illpriests.4 In the hope of correcting thesedetrimental effects, some dioceses and reli-gious orders moved their seminaries to auniversity campus or arranged to have theirseminarians take classes at an institution ofhigher education with university students.

On the basis of psychological testing,Murray5 attempted to evaluate the influenceof traditional seminary training on personal-ity. He administered the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) andthe Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Sur-vey to 400 Catholic college students, majorand minor seminarians and Catholic priests.He found an increase of deviancy during theseminary years and a dropping back sharplytoward normal after ordination. Murrayconcluded that "the deviant scores securedby the groups in training were partly due totypical personality characteristics of thoseattracted to the priesthood and partly due toseminary training."

The present study investigates four groupsof seminarians, two of which either lived ona university campus in separate boardingquarters or lived in a seminary but attendedall classes on a university campus, while theremaining two groups experienced the tra-ditional seminary training. Each group wastested before entering the seminary and thenafter completing from one of nine years asseminarians. All four groups had the firsttwo years of their training in an isolatedmilieu; Groups II and III had attendedclasses for one year at a university. GroupIV experienced six or seven years of tra-ditional seminary training and then beganteaching. It was hypothesized that the sem-inarians with university experience wouldshow less personality change in the directionof abnormality than those with traditionaltraining.

METHOD AND PROCEDURE

The subjects were 129 seminarians who hadjoined a religious order. The measure of

personality was the Minnesota MultiphasicPersonality Inventory (MMPI), administeredbefore the seminarians were accepted intothe Order. The first testing was given overa span of ten years; the post-testing simul-taneously but to seminarians at various levelsin their education. There were four distinctstages of training: 1) Novices (N=37) ; 2)Junior College students (N=34) ; 3) Uni-versity students, specializing in philosophy(N=33) ; 4) Teaching seminarians ( N =25). The Novices were in a two year train-ing period which was isolated, confiningand devoted primarily to spiritual forma-tion but included some formal classes inLatin, Greek and Scripture. The JuniorCollege and University students were attend-ing regular classes at Catholic universitieswhere they participated in curricular andextra-curricular activities. Previous to this,they had been in an isolated seminary en-vironment from three to five years. Thosein the Teaching group had seven years oftraditional seminary training, removed fromalmost all outside contacts.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A survey of the results can be found inTable 1, showing the changes from pretest-ing to post-testing in the means and standarddeviations and the t ratios indicating signifi-cance of differences. The Novices (GroupI), composed of seminarians, half of whomhad spent approximately one year and halfapproximately two years in this stage, showedsignificant change at the .05 level in thedirection of abnormality on only one scale,namely Pt (Psychasthenia). The JuniorCollege Seminarians (Group II) manifesteda significant shift in the direction of abnor-mality at the .01 level on two clinical scalesnamely D (Depression) and Pt (Psychas-thenia). There was also a shift at the .01level on Mf (Masculine-Feminine Interest).The University seminarians (Group III)showed the least amount of change, while

4. McAllister and VanderVeldt, p. 87.5. Murray, J. B. Training for the Priesthood

and Personality and Interest Test Manifestations.Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Fordham Uni-versity, 1957.

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58 Seminary Training and Personality Change

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations and t Ratios on Pretesting and Post-testingfor Seminarians at Four Levels of Training

L

F

K

HS

D

Hy

Pd

Mf

Pa

Pt

Sc

Ma

Group I (N =Before After

49.698.22

49.355,43

61.028.27

52.007.09

52.409.50

57.437.60

59.378.06

64.6710.48

55.299.07

57.867.01

58.297.38

53.629.91

51.407.94

51.834.77

59.708.86

53.627.43

52.5910.52

59.137.96

60.3210.19

68.9112.00

57.087.98

62.7811.15

60.868.77

57.0810.05

= 37)t

.92

2.09*

.66

.96

.08

.94

.44

1.62

.90

2.27*

1.36

1.49

GroupBefore

47.476.36

52.114.44

58.709.59

50.975.67

49.618.04

56.766.46

56.028.72

63.797.68

55.796.71

55.677.67

57.356.35

53.119.81

II (NAfter

48.737.56

52.114.92

57.596.26

52.116.48

55.769.84

58.356.70

57.149.39

69.029.54

58.0910.25

61.8410.50

57.099.44

57.309.07

= 34)t

.74

.00

.61

.78

2.81 • •

.99

.51

2.49* •

1.09

2.75 • •

.13

1.81

GroupBefore

48.667.31

50.844.47

60.038.77

52.185.86

50.907.83

58.906.83

58.3610.54

62.008.08

56.157.61

58.789.28

58.337.55

52.819.34

III ( N = 33)After t

47.726.11

52.005.47

61.218.67

53.575.83

53.189.25

60.365.12

60.099-02

67.849.74

58.126.98

63.399.93

60.278.56

53.909.03

.57

.94

.55

.97

1.08

.98

.71

2.65*

1.09

1.95

.98

.48

GroupBefore

48.609.08

49.282.83

60.328.91

51.046.52

47.248.29

57.686.67

60.128.10

59.768.84

54.167.52

55.926.73

56.086.65

54.248.23

IV (NAfter

46.606.57

52.925.90

59.128.23

52.9212.85

54.1211.82

60.4011.26

58.127.19

66.928.19

57.048.08

63.5611.05

61.849.27

56.6011.13

= 25)t

.89

2.78* *

.49

.65

2.38*

1.04

.92

2.97* *

1.30

2.95**

2.52* *

.85

* * differ significantly at the .01 level* differ significantly at the .05 level

the Teaching seminarians (Group IV)showed the most, with changes in the di-rection of abnormality at the .01 level on thevalidating scale F, Pt (Psychasthenia) andSc (Schizophrenia) and at the .05 level onD (Depression).

In view of the limited sample, the resultsare not definitive but suggest trends thatcould prove helpful in planning future sem-inary education. It would appear that twofactors are operating: 1) the type of train-ing, and 2) the environment in which thetraining is given. All four groups receiveda training during the two years of novitiatewhich emphasized following the rules of theOrder, striving to acquire virtue and per-sonal perfection and minimized development

through interpersonal and pastoral involve-ments. The Teaching Group had this typeof training through all the previous stagesin an isolate, confining environment. As agroup, these seminarians showed the great-est change. The group which showed al-most no significant change was composed ofuniversity students (Group III). Due togreater maturity they were probably betterable to lessen the habit of excessive intro-spection learned at a previous level and makebetter use of the pastoral and social oppor-tunities afforded by the University campus.The seminarians who had just come fromthe novitiate onto the College campus foundadjusting more difficult. They retainedtheir tendencies in the direction of excessive

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Richard P. Vaughan 59

worry, anxiousness and perfectionism andshowed an increase in poor morale and feel-ings of worthlessness joined with depression.Removed from the protective environmentof the isolated novitiate and thrown intocompetition with other college students, theyreacted with discouragement, self-dissatis-faction and feelings of inadequacy, while theUniversity seminarians were able to sur-mount similar environmental hazards with-out falling prey to such reactions. As wepreviously stated, a higher level of maturitymight account for this difference.

The increase on Pt (Psychasthenia)through all four levels seems to reflect theintrospective nature of traditional seminarytraining along with an emphasis on personaldevelopment through the attaining of virtuesand resultant feelings of guilt over failure.These changes persisted in a degree evenwhen there was a change in environment.

There is need to comment on the rela-tively high Mf (Masculine-Feminine Inter-est) means, indicating an increased tendencyon the part of seminarians to manifest fem-inine interests. A number of the items onthis scale call for the rejection of culturallyfeminine occupations and affirmation ofculturally masculine ones; among the formerare interests involving the Arts, such aswriting poetry, being in dramatics or work-ing as a journalist or librarian. The empha-sis placed on language, literature and hu-manities in the seminary curriculum couldaccount at least partially for these elevatedscores.

In interpreting the MMPI a rule-of-

thumb criterion for abnormality is a score of70 or above. Consequently, a measure ofincreased abnormality as a result of trainingwould be an increase in the frequency ofsuch scores from pretesting to post-testing.In the Novice Group there were 18 clinicalscales (omitting Mf) above 69 at pre-test-ing; these increased to 35 at the secondtesting; in the Junior College Group, 10increasing to 21; in the University Group, 9increasing to 22; and in the Teaching Group11 increasing to 29. These statistics indi-cate a shift in the direction of abnormalityat all levels regardless of the location of theseminary. Pt, a measure of worry, anxious-ness and perfectionism is the scale where theshift is most marked, even in the case ofthose attending college or university classes.

In summary, it can be said that changingthe location of seminary training from anisolated, confining environment to a collegeor university campus failed to offset the ef-fects of previous perfectionistic, self-centeredtraining in the case of Junior College semi-narians but did so to a degree in the case ofthe more mature University seminarians.Those students who received all their train-ing in the traditional seminary environmentshowed the greatest shift in the directionof abnormality. The results of this studypoint to a need not only to remove theseminary from its isolated location but alsoto develop a program of personal and spirit-ual formation which is "other-centered"and pastoral and less conducive to introspec-tion and perfectionism.

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