Spiritual wellness of priests

• Main Authors: Camigla, Bryan Lord A., Flores, Mythel Jane M.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1997
• Subjects: Christian life; Monastic and religious life; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/4105
• Institution: De La Salle University

The study explores the spiritual wellness of priests in parishes, chaplains and formators: their level of spiritua wellness if there are differences between the groups and possible predictors of spiritual wellness in the groups. Using convenient sampling, 116 priests became part of the study, 50 of which are priests in parishes, 42 are formators and 24 are chaplains. The priests were tested using the Spiritual Wellness Scale (Catapang et al., 1996). Results show that spiritual wellness of priests is above average. Priests in parishes are significantly lower in their level of spiritual wellness, as compared with chaplains and formators F(2, 113) = 3.07, two-tailed, p.<.05. Also, chaplains and formators are significantly higher in their relationships with the self, others, God than priests in parishes F(2, 113) = 3.07, two-tailed, p<.05. Such differences may be due to differences in workload, time for personal development, exposure to human experiences. It was also found that among priests in parishes, spiritual wellness declines with age (r = - .3128). Such might be caused by the pressures of their calling. Among formators, spiritual wellness lowers as years of service in present assignment increases (r = .-3215), probably caused by the work that becomes montonous as they stay long in their assignment.