The purpose of the study was to provide a predictive account for a nearly 60 percent decrease in the number of Catholic seminaries extant in 1968. Standards for seminary operations published by the Catholic Bishops in 1968 and 1971 were hypothesized to have no predictive relationship with seminary survival. The population consisted of all qualified Catholic seminaries in the United States. Cell group arrangements, obtained from the intersection of seminary survival with seminary academic levels, served as criterion composites with a variety of seminary measures serving as predictor composites in four differentiated multiple discriminant analyses. Survival alone served as criterion with regression analysis.The annual CARA Seminary Directory served as database. Values for more than seventy measures were obtained for use with univariate hypotheses tests from the CARA Seminary Directory. The level of probability set for rejection of the null hypotheses was .05.Findings1.Student body size, number of doctors on faculty, number of bachelors on faculty, and diocesan Catholic population were among the successful stepwise predictors of seminary survival.2.Size of faculty, size of administration, total number of priests, articulation pattern, state approval, and number of professional memberships were among the unsuccessful stepwise predictors of seminary survival.3. Generally, hypothesized variables were unsuccessful blockwise predictors of survival.4.Seventeen significant discrimant functions were found in the four discriminant analyses; eight functions reduced to two successful predictors of seminary survival by seminary level for initial and terminal data sets: (1) faculty qualification, and (2) commitment to run a school.Conclusions1.Multivariate predictors of seminary survival based on 1968 data differed from predictors based on terminal data for the most part.2. Individual norms and standards proposed by the Catholic Bishops had an unanticipated joint effect upon seminary survival.3. For the most part, closure or amalgamation of seminaries could not be predicted by failure to fulfill particular norms or standards proposed by the Catholic Bishops.

Thesis (M.T.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [41]-42, 60).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic university of America, 1935. / At head of title: The Catholic university of America. Includes bibliographies.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2002. / Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-166).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2002. / Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-166).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2002. / Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-166).

The concern of this investigation is with the meaning of becoming as well as being a member of one of four specific small and structured religious communities. Three of these religious groups - the Jesus People, the Hare Krishna Devotees and the Maharaj Ji Premies - are considered to be nonconformist in terms of the life-style, value-system and theology each adopts within the mainstream social and theological ethos, while the fourth group - a sample of Catholic Seminarians - like the other groups is a small community with a structured life-style, but its life-style and value-system is not necessarily non-conformist. These groups are all to be found, amongst other places, in Johannesburg, apart from the Catholic Priests, all of whom were living in a seminary in Pretoria. All the members of these religious communities - both men and women - who were interviewed were Caucasian, their educational standard ranged from pre-matric through to university graduate status, and the overall average age of the 9rouP members was 24 years - the youngest subject was aged 17 while the oldest was 31 years of age. Rather than a meas~rement orientated procedure, a phenomenologically inspired methodological procedure was used to explicitate the data. It is argued that a descriptive phenomenological perspective is more appropriate for the elucidation of meaning-structures, especially with reference to the present inquiry, than would be a quantitative, measurement and mathematical treatment of the subject matter with which this thesis is concerned. The results are best summarized by stating that, although the explication revealed that the four groups are distinctly different in certain aspects of the meaning-structures of the individuals' becoming and being members of a group, there are nonetheless marked similarities between the groups in other aspects of the explicitated data.

This autoethnography tells the story of my faith journey with a special focus on my years as a Catholic seminarian and the change towards embarking on a career as a clinical psychologist. Pertinent childhood experiences are also shared to contextualise my story. The narrative, “Wrestling Heart”, is the centre and the produced data of this autoethnography. As an “evocative” narrative, it independently seeks to fulfil many of the goals of an autoethnography, such as being therapeutic for both writer and readers, and imbuing culture with critical thinking. The sharing of the narrative is augmented with a thematic analysis of it and Carl Rogers’ Person-Centred Approach is mainly used to comprehend the gleaned themes. The movement towards a comprehension of my experience is consistent with the philosophical foundation of this study: phenomenology. It is envisaged that the utility of this study lies primarily in its interrogation of the relationship between religion and mental health, its in-depth depiction of an individual grappling with their faith in relation to mental health, and the way in which the writing of this autoethnography therapeutically fostered greater congruence for me the writer, as I prepare to work as a clinical psychologist. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)