Life satisfaction in priesthood: an inter-religious study

Abstract

The life satisfaction of the priests is of utmost importance as they are seemingly the closest to self-actualization but in the end are mere mortals and they too have mundanities of life to deal with and the duties of the priest aren’t just limited to the place of worship while they deal with their own issues, they help people navigate through the vagaries of human experience, there is no common definition of priesthood across all faiths and they don’t have anyone they can go for guidance, they are sometimes lost themselves. The present study was conducted to obtain the Life Satisfaction score through purposive sampling which consisted of 60 male participants above the age of 45 years of age. The L-S Scale designed and prepared by Alam & Srivastava was used. The objective of the study is to explore the life satisfaction among priests across religions and the difference between life satisfaction across religions. The obtained results show the current state relating to their level of life satisfaction which show out of 60, none of the participants had high level of life satisfaction. These findings can be attributed to being unemployed, in low-income scale groups. The research findings showed the dire situation of the priests meanwhile the populous looks up to them to be the remedy for their own day-to-day problems and the priests’ own well-being needs to be addressed at the earliest.