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To date, there has been little conceptual study of clericalism in Roman Catholic priests. To add to the understanding of this issue, in a series of 3 studies, we investigated the reliability and validity of the Clericalism Observer Rating Scale (CORS), a psychological measure of clericalism in Roman Catholic Priests, and offered a theory to understand clericalism. In Study 1, we created items, secured expert review of them, and used data from an Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) sample of Catholics (N ϭ 1,600) to evaluate the structure of the instrument. Exploratory factor analysis yielded an instrument with 3 factors and 24 items. The factor structure was replicated in another MTurk sample of Catholics (N ϭ 206; Study 2) through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using structural equation modeling. We successfully tested a second order latent factor through an alternative structural equation CFA model and found that a full-scale CORS score could be validly measured along with 3 subscale scores. In Study 3, we used MTurk sample (N ϭ 206) to test the convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity of the CORS and found evidence of construct validity for the CORS. Suggestions for using CORS as an instrument for screening candidates for priestly formation and for remediation efforts in working with clerical priests are discussed.

Pope Francis has frequently spoken about the scourge of clericalism and its damaging effects on life in the Church. Clerical priests are those priests who demonstrate the following characteristics: aloof, unaccountable, entitled, arrogant, and authoritarian. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have openly recognized the intimate relationship of clericalism to the sexual abuse crisis in the Church. However, clericalism has yet to receive adequate qualitative social science research with clear directives on how the clinical community can serve the Church in treating clericalist priests. This article addresses the issue of clericalism both theologically and psychologically to provide direction for the clinical community to respond to clericalist priests and their need for healing.

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