The Mohrmann piece provocatively plays with themes of spirituality, pastoral identity, and the problem of the non-quantifiable character of chaplaincy work. Mohrmann seems a bit too quick in agreeing that chaplaincy is really a new profession, a contention that is very far from resolution.

The Berlinger piece argues, correctly, that chaplains should step up to the plate to support quality improvement, fully aware that this is a hazardous role to play in any institution.

The lead article, the piece by Jacobs is troublesome in a number of respects. It is clearly infected with the HealthCare Chaplaincy agenda, as one would expect from a staff person of that agency.

Jacobs argues blatantly that hospital chaplaincy is “a vocation in its own right,” a claim, even if desirable, is at best premature. She fails to point out that clinically trained religious professionals move easily back and forth between congregational work and hospital work. In what sense this would be seen as changing professions she does not discuss. A great deal more work is to be done if we are going to establish hospital chaplaincy as a distinct profession. The bald claim that it is already one hardly furthers serious discussion and evaluation.

Jacobs also tosses around “spiritual” rather freely, without revealing any clear definition as to what she may be referring to. She offers a lame definition that spiritual “has many definitions, all tend to have something to do with transcendence…” That is not much of a promising start in examining what might be meant by spirituality.

Jacobs writes at length on the subject of what a chaplain does, and the end result is passing strange. She describes countless acts that a chaplain might engage in. Yet for all that, and quite mysteriously, she never quite comes to the point of stating what the chaplain is expected to do, or what the chaplain’s role is. Jacobs tells us that chaplains make themselves available to patients and staff in a variety of ways. Sometime they hang around. Sometimes they help clean up the body of a deceased patient. Sometimes they sit in silence, or they sit on committees, and chaplains, she says somewhat awkwardly, “are genuinely good at death and dying.” But curiously, or should I say astonishingly, she never gets around to stating exactly what a chaplain does, or what the role really is.

More troublesome for us, Jacobs continues the recent drumbeat of the so-called Spiritual Care Collaborative (SCC), repeating the claim that SCC is the organization of the “six major” chaplaincy groups who commit to common standards. This claim is a continuation of HCC propaganda in support of the drive for monopoly on the part of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) in the field of clinical pastoral training (CPE). That pursuit of monopoly is the hidden agenda of SCC.

It is not clear how the six self-appointed groups got to be the six ‘major’ groups in the field. Certainly they are not major in size. Furthermore, membership in the six overlaps so that virtually every person involved belongs to at least two, and often three of the six, which artificially inflates their numbers.

The claim that the six member organizations subscribe to “common standards” is patently and purposely misleading. The six member organizations have merely agreed to “work toward” elevating their particular organization’s standards to the level of the touted common standards. Furthermore, the common standards themselves are hardly a distinguished or rigorous set of standards. Most notably, they fail to address adequately the critical problem of peer review. In brief, the common standards are to date no one’s standards. The so-called common standards exist purely for vacuous and imperialistic public relations purposes.

Jacobs also repeats the false claim promoted for more than a decade by the ACPE, in its own monopolistic self-interests, that Medicare pass-through funds are contingent on recognition by the U. S. Department of Education. This false claim was made originally by the ACPE in the mid-90s. It was false when it was made and is still false. It keeps being repeated by partisans in support of ACPE’s continued striving for restoration of its monopoly.

It is regrettable that a highly esteemed institution like Hastings has allowed itself to be party to furthering this misinformation, especially in the context of some very useful essays.