Career satisfaction and age, locus of control, apostolate, and type of priestly vocation among priests in three Bangladeshi dioceses

• Main Author: Pereira, Adam S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1992
• Subjects: Vocation (in religious orders; congregations; etc); Age; Locus of control; Apostolate (Theology); Priests > Bangladesh; Catholic Studies; Ethics in Religion; Religious Education
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/1437
• Institution: De La Salle University

Forty-five priests, aged 60 and below of the Dioceses of Dhaka, Chittagong, and Mymensingh in Bangladesh took part in this research where an attempt was made to know if there is any relationship between age and locus of control of the priests and their career satisfaction and if there is any difference in the level of career satisfaction of the diocesan and religious priests, and parochial ministers and formators. The Career Satisfaction Index (no date of publication) of BPC Publishing Ltd. which was adapted, and the Internal-External Control Scale (1966) of Rotter were the instruments used in this study. The instruments were sent to Bangladesh, to a fellow priest, who reproduced and distributed them to 80 priests of age 60 and below. Out of 80, only 45 returned their answered questionnaires to the fellow priest who finally sent them to the researcher in Manila. The group of 45 priests was distributed according to their age, vocation, and apostolate: (1) diocesan, 20 (2) religious, 25 (3) parochial ministers, 25 and (4) formators, 20. Pearson r and the t-test were used to find out the relationship and difference. The findings showed that as priets' age increases, their satisfaction level also increases up to age 50. After that, career satisfaction drops. There is no significant relationship, r = (43), P .05, between locus of control of priests and career satisfaction but it was found that 11 priests had external locus of control and 34 had average locus of control nobody was considered to have an internal locus of control. The result also showed that the religious priests were more satisfied in their career than the diocesan priests, t (43), = 2.845 p .01 but the parochial ministers and the formators had no significant difference in their career satisfaction, t (43) .05. The literature support was discussed and the following recommendations were made: (1) The older priests should receive the younger priests as their brothers and understand them (2) the bishops and the superiors need to have friendly relationship with the priests (3) the diocesan priests need to have stronger community life (4) the bishops need to create various kinds of apostolates for their priests and (5) the really interested priests need to be prepared for the formation work before they start working.