{"id":3048,"date":"2011-10-07T05:58:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T05:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2025-09-28T22:51:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T22:51:15","slug":"despite-low-pay-long-hours-no-sex-catholic-priests-are-among-happiest-members-of-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3048","title":{"rendered":"Despite low pay, long hours, no sex, Catholic priests &#8220;are among happiest members of society&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>UPDATE:<\/strong><\/span> Got an email from one of my correspondents and she says &quot;sounds like an average American worker, married with kids!&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A study, which also references other studies with similar findings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zenit.org\/article-33600?l=english\" target=\"_self\">Study: Most Priests Are Happy, Appreciate Celibacy<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Isolation causes unhappiness. We are meant to be connected with others.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The good news here is that the vast majority of priests &#8212; over 90% &#8212; reported having solid friendships with other priests and with the laity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">One of the great joys and supports for the life of a priest is his connections with others.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The secular notion that priests are lonely, isolated men is simply not true.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Indeed, priestly happiness has been rising over the past several years and will likely rise even higher. In my research only 3.1% of priests were even thinking of leaving the priesthood. Given the enormous pressure on priesthood today and the many real challenges facing these men, this is remarkable.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">ZENIT: What about celibacy? How does it relate to a priest\u2019s happiness?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Monsignor Rossetti: This was also an interesting finding. Those priests who felt called by God to live a celibate life and who experienced celibacy as a personal grace, despite its challenges, were much more likely to be happy men. The correlation between this positive view of celibacy and priestly happiness was a strong r=.47.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The good news here is that over 75% of priests have found celibacy to be a positive part of their lives.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">This percentage is likely to rise even higher in the future. It is the youngest priests who most strongly support mandatory celibacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATE: Got an email from one of my correspondents and she says &quot;sounds like an average American worker, married with kids!&quot; A study, which also references other studies with similar findings. Study: Most Priests Are Happy, Appreciate Celibacy Isolation causes unhappiness. We are meant to be connected with others. The good news here is that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6264,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/6264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}