Psychological Screening for Seminary Candidates – Consideration and Review of the Recent Vatican Statement on Homosexuals in the Seminary

Abstract

Two hundred twenty-eight respondents (110 heterosexuals and 118 homosexuals) completed a survey containing a 20-item Boyhood Gender Conformity Scale (BGCS). This scale was largely composed of edited and abridged gender items from Part A of Fruend et al.'s Feminine Gender Identity Scale (FGIS-A) and Whitam's childhood indicators. The combined scale was developed in an attempt to attain a reliable, valid, and potent discriminating instrument for accurately classifying adult male respondents for sexual orientation on the basis of their reported boyhood gender conformity or nonconforming behavior and identity. In addition, 33% of these respondents were administered the original FGIS-A and Whitam inventory during a 2-week test-retest analysis conducted to determine the validity and reliability of the new instrument. All the original items significantly discriminated between heterosexual and homosexual respondents. From these a 13-item function and a 5-item function proved to be the most powelful discriminators between the two groups. Significant correlations between each of the three scales and a very high test-retest correlation coefficient supported the reliability and validity assumption for the BGCS. The conclusion was made that the five244 Linacre Quarterly item function (playing with boys, prefening boys' games, imagining self as sports figure, reading adventure and sports stories, considered a sissy) was the most potent and parsimonious discriminator among adult males for sexual orientation. It was similarly noted that the absence of masculine behaviors and traits appeared to be a more powerful predictor of later homosexual orientation than the traditionally feminine or cross-sexed traits