Father Knows Best: Parishes, Priests, and American Catholic Parishioners' Attitudes Toward Capital Punishment

Public opinion has important implications for capital punishment in the United States. Such opinion formation involves moral judgments irreducible to processing information on the administration of capital punishment or sentencing alternatives. Religious communities play a crucial role in resolving such moral dilemmas and giving meaning to available information. The Catholic Church strongly opposes capital punishment and strives to instruct lay Catholics on this issue. Accordingly, church attendance is associated with less support of the death penalty among Catholics but not among non-Catholics in the general population. Politically and socially conservative Catholic parishioners are more supportive of such punishment, while more religious parishioners report less such support. Parish priests significantly influence death penalty attitudes, in particular among more spiritual parishioners. Black Catholics are more supportive of the death penalty than their non-Catholic counterparts, in part because of a convergence in death penalty attitudes between blacks and whites in predominantly black parishes.     

Occupational Stress and Catholic Priests: A Scoping Review of the Literature

Journal of Religion and Health - This study offers an exploratory review of the experience of stress and burnout syndrome among Catholic priests. Following Arksey and O’Malley's (Int J...     

A Qualitative Investigation of Women's and Men's Body Image Concerns and Their Attitudes Toward Aging

In-depth interviews were conducted with 42 women and men (aged 22–62 years) to explore their relationships with their bodies. The particular focus was age-related changes in body image and attitudes toward the body aging, an area that has received little research attention to date. Thematic analysis revealed distinctive gender differences. Men commonly conceptualized their bodies as a holistic entity, whereas women commonly had compartmentalized conceptualizations. They also construed the importance of their bodies differently: men tended to focus on functionality, and women tended to focus on display. These findings may help to explain gendered consequences of body dissatisfaction. Accounts about the aging of the body support a “double standard of aging.” Women viewed aging most negatively in terms of its impact on appearance, whereas men reported a neutral or even positive impact on appearance.     

The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church: What Psychologists and Counselors Should Know

Recent events regarding child sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere have yet again resulted in a tremendous amount of media attention and frenzy regarding this topic. During 2002 alone, approximately 300 American Catholic priests, including several bishops, were accused of child sexual abuse. Many were forced to resign their positions while others were prosecuted and went to prison. Curiously, there still exist many myths and misperceptions about priests who sexually abuse children and their victims. Since psychologists and other mental health professionals are likely to interact with many who have been impacted by these recent events, it is important for them to have some basic understanding of the various myths and misperceptions about sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests.     

A Qualitative Investigation of Practicing Psychologists' Attitudes Toward Research-Informed Practice: Implications for Dissemination Strategies

This article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of interviews with 25 psychologists in independent practice, investigating everyday treatment decisions and attitudes about treatment outcome research and empirically supported treatments (ESTs). Clinicians noted positive aspects about treatment outcome research, such as being interested in what works. However, they had misgivings about the application of controlled research findings to their practices, were skeptical about using manualized protocols, and expressed concern that nonpsychologists would use EST lists to dictate practice. Clinicians reported practicing in an eclectic framework, and many reported including cognitive-behavioral elements in their practice. To improve their practice, they reported valuing clinical experience, peer networks, practitioner-oriented books, and continuing education when it was not too basic. Time and financial barriers concerned nearly all participants. Clinicians suggested they might be interested in ESTs if they could integrate them into their current frameworks, and if resources for learning ESTs were improved.     

Healing the Healers: A Profile of Strengths and Weaknesses of Catholic Priests in Gozo,Malta

This exploratory study of Roman Catholic secular priests examined their psycho-spiritual well-being and vocational challenges. With a 52% response rate, this population study indicated that most respondents had a balanced ministry life and healthy spirituality. However, pastoral and vocational satisfactions, together with mandated celibacy, remain contentious issues. An initial instrument was developed to discern what contributes to priests’ vocational satisfaction. Psycho-spiritual well-being, intrinsic religion, vocational frustrations, and celibacy emerged as four key domains. Results were scrutinized to determine how they could serve as a platform for a future and more robust scale. This paper also contains a discussion of the pastoral implications of this study, and how the church could be more true to its calling.     

Gender,Religiosity, Sexual Activity,Sexual Knowledge,and Attitudes Toward Controversial Aspects of Sexuality

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of gender, religiosity, sexual activity, and sexual knowledge in predicting attitudes toward controversial aspects of sexuality among Turkish university students. Participants were 162 female and 135 male undergraduate students who were recruited on a volunteer basis from an urban state university in Turkey. The SKAT-A Attitude Scale along with background information form, sexual activities inventory, and sexual knowledge scale were administered to the participants. Simultaneous multiple regression analyses revealed that religiosity, particularly attendance to religious services was the most significant predictor in explaining university students’ attitudes toward masturbation, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and sexual coercion.     

Toward a Model Informed Consent Process for BRCA1 Testing: A Qualitative Assessment of Women's Attitudes

As an initial part of a project to develop a model informed consent process for BRCA1 testing, we conducted a series of focus groups. At the groups, women initially expressed great interest in testing, but their interest diminished after learning more. If offered testing, women would most want to learn about test accuracy, practical details of testing, and management options if the result was positive. Perceived benefits of testing included gaining information leading to risk reduction, relief of uncertainty, more responsible parenting, and assisting in research. Perceived risks included the discomfort and cost of the testing process itself, and anxiety after a positive result. The risk of possible insurance discrimination was rarely mentioned spontaneously. Many women would want their providers to make recommendations, rather than be nondirective about testing. We observed that women vary greatly in their informational and counseling needs, and suggest that the informed consent process should be individualized, taking into account a woman's perception and her preferences for how testing decisions should be made.     

Profiling a Profession: A Victorian Survey Assessing Lay Attitudes Toward and Knowledge of Counselling Psychologists

The current study employed a mixed‐methods approach to examine perceptions towards and knowledge of counselling psychologists, including perceived differences between counselling and clinical psychologists. One hundred and fourteen adult members of the Victorian general public participated in the study and completed a 65‐item questionnaire, the Counselling Psychology Status Survey. As predicted, results from quantitative analysis showed that counselling psychologists were reported to be highly needed, valued, and respected by the current sample of Victorian residents. Respondents also reported a high level of confidence in counselling psychologists to treat various mental illnesses. Thematic analysis of qualitative textual data derived from written responses to an open‐ended question revealed that compared with clinical psychologists, counselling psychologists were understood to be less qualified, less skilled, and to work with less severe or complex client presentations. Taken together, results from this study suggest that although counselling psychology appears to occupy a positive public image, the importance of public promotion and awareness‐raising of the specialist profession of counselling psychology, and the continuing need for public education into the nature of psychological services and the qualifications, skills, and competencies of practitioners of psychological service provision, particularly compared with clinical psychology, cannot be underestimated.     

Self-Esteem as a Predictor of Attitudes Toward Wife Abuse Among Muslim Women and Men in Canada

Abstract

This study was designed (a) to assess attitudes toward wife abuse in a sample of Muslim women and men in Canada and (b) to assess whether those attitudes were influenced by self-esteem. Results suggested that, as in general North American samples, the Muslim women and men did not differ from each other on levels of self-esteem. Also consistent with general North American samples, the Muslim women's and men's attitudes toward wife abuse were related to their self-esteem, with higher self-esteem scores predicting stronger attitudes against wife abuse, independent of gender. However, the results also revealed that the Muslim men had significantly more lenient attitudes toward wife abuse compared with the Muslim women and with North American norms.     

Expert Testimony on Child Sexual Abuse:a Qualitative Study of the Swedish Approach toStatement Analysis

Statement analysis is an evaluation method occasionally used forassessing children's testimony in cases of alleged sexual abuse. InSweden, statement analytical evaluations can be presented as expertevidence in legal proceedings. The purpose of the present study was toexplore the Swedish application of statement analysis, developed by Dr.Arne Trankell. Ten written expert witness reports were subjected to acombination of qualitative and quantitative content analysis. Inaddition to exploring what information was considered in theevaluations, the study focused on the way experts integrated data, andhow they interpreted the results of their evaluations. Statementanalysis in Sweden is characterised by a case-related approach, ascompared to the way of using pre-defined criteria within the frameworkof Statement Validity Analysis. Experts used statement characteristicsin different ways and emphasised different aspects of cases in order toreach their conclusions. Most experts used alternative hypotheses inorder to evaluate their data. Although the use of hypothesis-testing hasstrong support in the literature, there appeared to be risks for logicalmistakes connected to the conveyance of tentative hypotheses intoconclusions. The results are discussed in relation to other applicationsof statement analysis.     

Toward the Fullness of Christ: A Catholic Vision of Ecumenism

This article locates the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's recent document Dominus Iesus against the background of great ecumenical advance in North America and elsewhere and a series of highly encouraging ecumenical statements published by John Paul II. Its most contentious statement is a reiteration and clarification of the Vatican II teaching in Lumen Gentium that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. It distinguishes among churches in the proper sense, with valid episcopate and eucharist, and defective ecclesial communities. The church of Christ cannot subsist in them but only in the Catholic Church. The article points out, nevertheless, that since all these bodies are recognized as having elements of the church, the operation of grace is still ecclesial and not individual and secondly that a pneumatologically orientated Christology sees ecumenism as a response in grace to the divine economy.     

Intercessory Rote Prayer,Life Longevity and the Mortality of Roman Catholic Bishops: An Exploratory Study

Journal of Religion and Health - Based on a computational analysis of a large dataset, this study explores if there is a significant longevity effect of intercessory prayer for a...     

Attitudes to Marriage and Sexual Behaviors: A Survey of Gender and Culture Differences in China and United Kingdom

This paper reports a survey carried out among 505 university students in China and 338 students in the United Kingdom. The survey included questions on attitudes toward mate-selection preferences, marriage, and sexual behavior. The findings show that traditional values in mate-selection preferences persist more in China than in the United Kingdom and indicate that, despite a profound social revolution over the last two decades, a relatively conservative sexual culture still exists in China today. Traditional morality and attitudes prevail especially among women. Gender and culture differences are discussed.     

A New Way of Assessing Ways of Knowing: The Attitudes Toward Thinking and Learning Survey (ATTLS)

In four studies, college students (both male andfemale, predominantly white) filled out a 50-item surveyconsisting of statements illustrating“separate” (critical, detached) and“connected” (empathic) ways of knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, G oldberger,& Tarule, 1986). The instrument showed acceptableinternal reliability. Scores on the two scales wereuncorrelated, supporting the view that the twoepistemological positions are independent. Females consistentlyrated connected knowing (CK) statements higher thanseparate knowing (SK) statements, while males showed aslight, but non-significant difference favoring SK statements. When participants were dividedinto groups using a joint median split of the two ratingscores, females were disproportionately likely to beplaced in the High CK-Low SK group. CK and SK scores were unrelated to performance on avariety of cognitive tasks, but were related to somemeasures of preference, suggesting that ways of knowingmay function more as approaches or styles rather than basic abilities.     

The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Mourning of American Catholic Innocence

The passionate response of many American Catholics to the clergy sex abuse crisis is an expression not only of legitimate anger over the sexual abuse of children and young people by Roman Catholic priests but also of resistance to mourning the significant losses post-immigrant American Catholics sustained in the last third of the twentieth century.

Gender Differences in Ways of Knowing: The Context Dependence of the Attitudes Toward Thinking and Learning Survey

In this article we challenge the notion of stable, gender-related differences in the way people acquire and process information, with men more likely to utilize separate knowing and women connected knowing. An alternative analysis highlights malleability and the importance of social context in determining knowing style. We examined the responses of 186 women and 81 men on the Attitudes Toward Thinking and Learning Survey (ATTLS; Galotti, Clinchy, Ainsworth, Lavin, & Mansfield, 1999) across 3 contexts. Results revealed that both men and women were more likely to use connected knowing in the context of similar in-groups compared to the context of dissimilar out-groups. Gender differences were only apparent where gender was made salient. Our data support an analysis of ways of knowing as flexible and context dependent and question the notion that knowing is intrinsically related to gender.     

Sexual Abuse and Subsequent Risky Sexual Behaviors: A Competency Model for Treatment of Adolescent Females

Sexual abuse is an antecedent to many psychological and behavioral issues that accompany client families when they present for therapy. This article reviews relevant literature regarding sexual abuse in childhood/adolescence as it relates to resultant risky sexual behaviors and their combined impact on individual and family functioning. Treatment guidelines using Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy are presented in the context of three key elements of clinical competence: knowledge, awareness, and skills.     

The Psychological Processes of Discerning the Vocation to the Catholic Priesthood: A Qualitative Study

This study explores the psychological process of discerning the vocation to the Catholic priesthood. Grounded theory, a qualitative research methodology, was used to uncover the meaning and essence of the psychological processes of discerning the vocation to the Catholic priesthood. Five themes emerged from the data paralleling other developmental theories. Presently, assessment work follows similar patterns used in vocational testing in relation to any career. Based on the findings of this research, another facet of psychological assessment in regards to developing a sense of self may be beneficial in understanding a man’s readiness to serve the Catholic Church as a priest.