There is not one Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Jewish chaplain in Ireland. This is a shocking fact when you consider the “diversity” of Ireland now. In the US, UK, Germany and many other countries, non-Christian chaplains are commonplace. To put it plainly, the Irish State is discriminatory when it comes to chaplaincy service provision. No one organisation is embodying this discrimination on its own. It is general, throughout the State.
Take the Defence Forces, for example. All their chaplains are Christian and their main services of memorial are Christian rites. The same holds true for An Garda Síochána. The force’s annual service to remember deceased members is a Catholic Mass. So embedded are Christian chaplains in these organisations that they even wear the uniform, whether or not they have undergone the requisite training. Such a privilege is not extended to other faiths. Well, how could it be? Despite other religious members in the rank and file of the army and police, they don’t have chaplains from their own religious traditions.
And you’ll find a Christian monopoly on chaplaincy in Irish hospitals, hospices and universities, with other faiths not represented. This is staggering, considering how diverse the people working in hospitals and universities are. You’ll also be hard pressed to find spatial provision for any non-Christian faiths in hospitals and universities. And where you do, the provision is wholly inadequate.
There appears to be a wilful blindness to the multidenominational country we live in. Despite decades of diversity, it’s business as usual when it comes to the churches’ control over chaplaincy in Ireland.
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The university where I work, TU Dublin, is a case in point. According to one of the chaplains themselves, 10 people work for the chaplaincy in various capacities. They are all from Christian backgrounds. The chaplains are paid for by the university, but appointed by the Archdiocese of Dublin, which also interviews for the university chaplain jobs. So, the chaplaincy is controlled by the Catholic Church, but paid for by the university – a university supported financially by a diverse student body. Recently, the university has intimated that it is considering dissolving the chaplaincy at TU Dublin and replacing it with a more secular service model. An unlikely defender of this all-Christian chaplaincy emerged in the form of the trade union movement: the TUI has come out in favour of defending the status quo.
The model of chaplaincy is not one I think worth defending, but neither would I support the arid secularity that is being mooted to replace it. A great opportunity may be missed here. As in other multicultural democracies, TU Dublin has a chance to develop a truly inclusive form of multi-faith chaplaincy. Universities, police forces, hospitals and universities around the world have models that could be drawn on. Better than a non-inclusive chaplaincy is a secular pastoral service; better again is a diverse chaplaincy that draws on the various rich spiritual traditions available in modern Irish life.
A similar set-up persists at many other national institutions in Ireland. Universities may have had their origins in the cloistered realities of medieval religious life, but now they seem intent in aligning themselves with the soulless materialism of international capital and its demands.
There is a spiritual dimension to reality that is being snuffed out in public forums and in public life generally. And maybe it is better, indeed, that religion be a wholly private affair, rather than a public declaration.
But there is another way. It requires taking responsibility for change and being imaginative, disestablishing the vested church interests, hanging on for dear life throughout this State, and opening the doors with generosity, trust and in a sense of fairness. It requires recognising that the status quo being defended simply isn’t worth defending.
What cannot continue is the iron grip that Christian denominations have over chaplaincy in Ireland. In this regard, the State is being grossly discriminatory in myriad ways – through its armed forces, through its police force, through its universities and hospitals. It’s as if there were no such thing as equality legislation and that the last three decades of Irish history simply did not happen. How chaplaincy here has got away with resisting change and equity for so long is beyond me. It seems the bony, cold fingers of Cardinal Paul Cullen, the 19th-century prelate who laid the foundations for modern Catholic Ireland, still have us in their grip.
Myozan Ian Kilroy is a Zen Buddhist priest. He represents Buddhism on the Dublin City Interfaith Forum and teaches in the TU Dublin School of Media. His book Do Not Try to Become a Buddha will be published by Wisdom Publications, New York, in the new year.
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