Anxiety about the quality of those who aspire to become clergy is rooted in the series of child sex abuse scandals that have emerged from Anglicanism's mother church over the past 20 years.

In testimony given last March to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse — the public body set up to investigate abuse in many organizations, including churches — Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner said his diocese could use psychological testing of ordinands to assess whether they are suitable.

He said the testing is "something we will be starting later this year."

Last week, Julian Hubbard, director of the Church of England's Ministry Division, said in a statement, "This has been given added focus by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and the requirement to provide greater assurance on the effectiveness of the selection process. So we are examining its potential as a means to identify candidates who might pose a risk to others."

"But this is not only about safeguarding," Hubbard added.

"It is vital to use all means available to find people with the right skills and aptitudes for this unique, but very challenging, calling."

The Church of England currently uses a variety of assessment methods for prospective ordinands, including lengthy interviews, written exercises, questionnaires, group discussions and detailed references.

But Leslie Francis, a canon professor of religions and education at Warwick University and an expert on psychological profiling of clergy, said more intensive testing can help spot pathologies such as narcissism.

"Both introversion and extroversion can reflect the divine image," said Francis, "but it is also very wise for the church to consider pathologies."

In the book "Let Us Prey: The Plague of Narcissist Pastors and What We Can Do about It," researchers R. Glenn Ball and Darrell Puls estimate, based on their 2015 study, that about a third of ministers in one mainline Protestant denomination in Canada showed signs of a narcissistic personality.

Narcissists often come to apprehend God as a rival, not a loving presence, and eventually may see themselves as God. Continue reading

• Image: RNS

Challenging what he calls the 'the sickness of the mirror,' he said it sees many people drawn into a prolonged self-reflection.

This "produces sadness, because you live worried about putting makeup on your soul everyday to appear better than you are, contemplating to see if you are more beautiful than others," he said.

Young people need to be aware of this, told the younger members of the group.

"Young people, break the mirror! Do not look in the mirror, because the mirror deceives. Look outward, look at others."

Francis said they should concentrate on helping others and on developing a healthy ability to laugh at themselves instead, which "gives us joy and saves us from the temptation of narcissism.".

The trouble is, we live in "a world without any roots - and that is the drama of drugs," Francis continued.

"Young people totally uprooted, without real commitments. That is to say, without real commitments of the flesh, because with drugs you can't even feel your own body."

Francis also asked his younger visitors to live out God's plan by being generous and giving with the gifts they have freely have received.

After receiving a timid "yes" when he asked them if they understood his suggestions, he said:

"Oh my goodness, look how you are! It seems that instead of encouraging you, I am giving you a sedative to fall asleep."

Source

• Rome Reports
• Christian Today
• CNA
• Image: Time Magazine

The rising number of ADHD cases over the past four decades is staggering. In the 1970s, a mere one percent of kids were considered ADHD. By the 1980s, three to five percent was the presumed rate, with steady increases into the 1990s. One eye-opening study showed that ADHD medications were being administered to as many as 17 percent of males in two school districts in southeastern Virginia in 1995.

With numbers like these, we have to wonder if aspects of the disorder parallel childhood itself. Many people recognize the symptoms associated with ADHD: problems listening, forgetfulness, distractibility, prematurely ending effortful tasks, excessive talking, fidgetiness, difficulties waiting one's turn, and being action-oriented. Many also may note that these symptoms encapsulate behaviors and tendencies that most kids seem to find challenging. So what leads parents to dismiss a hunch that their child may be having difficulty acquiring effective social skills or may be slower to mature emotionally than most other kids and instead accept a diagnosis of ADHD?

The answer may lie, at least in part, with the common procedures and clinical atmosphere in which ADHD is assessed. Conducting a sensitive and sophisticated review of a kid's life situation can be time-consuming. Most parents consult with a pediatrician about their child's problem behaviors, and yet the average length of a pediatric visit is quite short. With the clock ticking and a line of patients in the waiting room, most efficient pediatricians will be inclined to curtail and simplify the discussion about a child's behavior. That's one piece of the puzzle. Additionally, today's parents are well versed in ADHD terminology. Continue reading

Sources

• Enrico Gnaulati in The Atlantic
• Image: MentallyFine

Enrico Gnaulati, PhD, is a clinical psychologist based in Pasadena, California.

The researchers go as far as to establish a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and the degree to which you are a "socially disruptive" narcissist. The study defines a narcissist as: a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance.

People who scored highly on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire had more friends on Facebook, tagged themselves more often and updated their newsfeeds more regularly.

The study concluded that grandiose exhibitionism correlated with anti-social behaviour on Facebook. Self-esteem was negatively related to self-promotion and anti-social behaviours on the site.

Facebook "offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and emotionally detached communication," according to study by Western Illinois University professor Christopher Carpenter.

A number of previous studies have linked narcissism with Facebook use, but this is some of the first evidence of a direct relationship between Facebook friends and the most "toxic" elements of narcissistic personality disorder.

"In general, the 'dark side' of Facebook requires more research in order to better understand Facebook's socially beneficial and harmful aspects in order to enhance the former and curtail the latter," Carpenter said.

The study was published this month in Personality and Individual Differences, the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences.

Sources

• The Guardian
• ZD Net
• Image: Sky News

Where 19th-century Shakers had sung " 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free," Mr. Cuomo offered his own lyrics: "I'm the meanest in the place, step up, I'll mess with your face." Instead of the Shaker message of love and humility, Mr. Cuomo sang over and over, "I'm the greatest man that ever lived."

The refrain got Dr. DeWall wondering: "Who would actually sing that aloud?" Mr. Cuomo may have been parodying the grandiosity of other singers — but then, why was there so much grandiosity to parody? Did the change from "Simple Gifts" to "Greatest Man That Ever Lived" exemplify a broader trend?

Now, after a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs, Dr. DeWall and other psychologists report finding what they were looking for: a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music. As they hypothesized, the words "I" and "me" appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there's been a corresponding decline in "we" and "us" and the expression of positive emotions.

"Late adolescents and college students love themselves more today than ever before," Dr. DeWall, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, says. His study covered song lyrics from 1980 to 2007 and controlled for genre to prevent the results from being skewed by the growing popularity of, say, rap and hip-hop.

Read more of A Generation's Vanity, Heard Through Lyrics