What is a Chaplain?

A chaplain is a person who is often attached to a “a chapel”, which is a place for worship, religious and spiritual reflection, or private prayer and meditation. Chapels are smaller than a more traditionally sized church or temple, and are often attached to secular institutions. (Sometimes the “chapel” may not be a literal or permanent place.)

 

Some examples of places where chapels and chaplains are commonly found include:

 

These places or organisations tend to have transient populations – that is to say, the people within them do not intend to stay in place for very long, from a few years to a few hours. They will also often be composed of people with many different kinds of belief systems and levels of practice. They are brought together by their circumstances (because of their career, health condition, legal status, etc.)

 

This makes them different from traditional religious congregations, where most of the people come together by choice, share a core identity or set of beliefs and practices, and generally intend to stay local and interact with each other for a sustained period of time, if not lifelong.

 

However, often they will still have need for spiritual services and resources – especially if the circumstances bringing them together have also separated them from their home congregations - and they are entitled to access to these. This is where the Chaplain comes in.

 

It is the Chaplain’s job to ensure that the religious rights and spiritual needs of this population are defended and served appropriately.

What does a Chaplain do?

Some examples of a Chaplain’s work might include:

Who can be a Chaplain?

The qualifications and training requirements for chaplains vary widely. Each country has their own authoritative bodies and training standards. Likewise, the individual institutions hiring a chaplain will have their own standards for what qualifies someone for chaplaincy work. This might depend heavily on what services are expected to be performed most frequently.

 

Generally speaking, a Chaplain should be someone who is recognised as a competent representative of their religious, spiritual, or philosophical community. They should have been a member of that community for a significant period of time, have been actively involved in the life of the community, have some experience of leadership within that life. Some groups recognise two general kinds of leadership figures who stand apart from the regular congregation and are able to represent them: clergy, and laity. Exactly what defines either of these groups varies not only by religion/belief system but also by denomination, sect, or branch.


Some examples of clergy include:


Some of these terms may technically also apply to Lay Leaders as well (again depending on religion/sect/denomination), and sometimes the line between Clergy and Laity is not clearly defined. Generally, Clergy go through a process called Ordination, which typically entails a period of formal study and training with a recognised authoritative body (such as a Seminary), often two to four, or more, years long, followed by a rigorous period of testing, and then a ceremony wherein the new clergy take vows, such as commitment to uphold and endorse the beliefs of the community, to follow certain rules, to perform certain services, and to serve the members of that community in specific ways. Laity may or may not undertake a similar level of study and testing, and may be qualified to fulfil certain services, but generally do not take vows (or take far less stringent vows).


Another defining line may be that Clergy will be paid (or otherwise financially supported) by the community, church, or governing body of the religious/spiritual/philosophical organisation, to fulfil spiritual/religious services full time. Generally Laity are not paid/supported, and have another career alongside their spiritual service. Of course, an exception to this may be when a Lay Leader is serving full time as a Chaplain, when they are employed/paid by the secular institution to perform these functions.

What is "Spiritual Care"?

Ultimately what sets Chaplains apart is the ability to provide "Spiritual Care." But what is "Care" in a "Spiritual" context? Especially if someone is not religious, or doesn't even identify as "spiritual" themselves?

Without delving too deeply into theology and philosophy, the word "spirit" comes from the Latin verb "spīrō" which translates as "I breathe, I exhale" but also means "I emit" and "I live." In numerous languages, the word for "spirit" is related to the word for "breath." Breath is a vital part of life; when we cannot breath, when we have no air, we cannot live for very long.

"Spiritual" care, therefore, is care for one's Life; but rather than one's "life" in the medical sense, but life in all its intangible senses. The parts of life that cannot be quantified, counted, or measured easily.

Whether one believes in a "Spirit" in the sense of a "Soul" or a "Ghost" or in something that exists after Life/Breathing has ended, no one can contest that, while alive, all people Breath and benefit from having healthy time and space and ways to breathe.

Breath is also fundamental to speaking, to communicating, and especially to telling stories. Much of the "spiritual care" that a Chaplain does can simply look like listening as people talk, and occasionally speaking to them to give advice or comfort. A major part of a Chaplain's job is to help people tell their Story, to help them make sense of that story, and to find purpose and fulfilment in that story.

And sometimes, the silences and breaths between words are just as important as the words themselves. Speaking aloud is not the only way we communicate; we do so through gesture and expression, and other means.

So while other professionals care for certain specific parts of our Lives (our employer gives us a job to do and money to enable other aspects of our lives, our doctors care for our bodies when they are injured or in dis-ease, entertainers tell us the stories of others so we can relate to them and expand our own story, etc) Spiritual Care-Givers (such as Chaplains) help fill in the gaps where we find other sources of Life lacking.

Interfaith Working

It's important to note that while most Chaplains come from their own, singular faith background, they are expected to serve and protect the rights of all members of their community, regardless of faith/belief/religion, or lack thereof.

For example, a hospital chaplain who is a Muslim Imam cannot exclusively look after Muslim patients and staff and ignore everyone else; they are still able and expected to visit with and give pastoral care to Jewish, Christian, Pagan, Hindu, and Atheist patients and staff. If a Catholic patient requests Holy Communion, the Imam cannot, of course, dispense it themselves, but would be expected to have contact with a nearby Catholic Priest who is available to visit the hospital, under the Muslim Chaplain's supervision, and dispense this service to Catholic patients.

Similarly, if the Chapel staff on a military base host weekly Sabbath and Sunday Worship for its Jewish and Christian community, and a group of Wiccans request to be allowed to hold a ceremony on the Full Moon, the Chaplains of that base would be required to do their best to accommodate the needs of those people with equal effort and enthusiasm as they do for anyone else. This may require mediating between the Wiccans and other faith groups, who may feel that one form of religious observation "desecrates" the sanctity of their place of worship; nevertheless, the Chapel can't favour one group over another.

Ideally Chaplains will have a fair amount of awareness of other belief systems, and be able to anticipate and prepare for the needs of their congregations before they are requested. For example, a well maintained Chapel will have a library properly stocked with a variety of religious and secular philosophical texts which are available without being requested. A good Chaplain also keeps track of multi-faith calendars and knows when the holiday or significant observances of other spiritualities are coming up.