1. No more Padres. If anyone wants to go to church - there's one in every town. Anyone need counselling - there's plenty of organizations that can help.
Yep, let's ditch the guys whose sole concern is the welfare of individuals as human beings. Sends a nice message, and helps morale develop along its present vector. On det, people can always ask the local vicar in Basra or the Magic Kingdom or wherever to come in and lead a service. And why have someone who's part of the RAF to be there for RAF people, at Crown expense, when any airman or officer, or family member, would be happy to pay out silly money to local civvy counsellors? And the chance of a security risk from any counsellors offering their services to military personnel? Nil, surely. Pardon my irony, but I think ditching chaplains is a bad idea!
Welfare - OC PMS' job.
Has anyone had any experience of any difference in performance between OCs PMS and chaplains when they've hit a big problem? Stories I've heard suggest it's the Padre who gets things moving.
At an average wage of 50k per year, there must be a couple of hundred of them - there's £10mil per year in wages alone for you.
An RC chaplain will have done six years full-time residential training before ordination, then had three years or more supervised development as an assistant priest, before taking the Queen's Shilling. Some have served as a parish priest for years before joining. For other denominations, it'll be similar, but with shorter training before ordination (typically 2 or 3 years). Their starting salary? £30,985 (source: pay review 2003). Looks like a
bargain to me! At 13 years, they're on £45,450. Sorry, don't know the present chaplain strength, but I reckon £10m would be hard to find.
Many organisations talk a lot of
about a holistic approach to the welfare of their people. By providing chaplains the RAF is actually doing it, or trying, employing people to care for the spiritual welfare of RAF personnel. Rather work for an organisation which counts each person as a mere unit of human resource? You'll find plenty to choose from when the day comes to say tata!
Even if -- and I'm not conceding this point, just acknowledging it -- even if the continued existence of the chaplains branch is mere lip service to an ideal of a holistic view of service life, even if the MOD only continue to pay them to make the RAF
seem to be interested in the pastoral, emotional and spiritual welfare of RAF people and families, isn't lip service better than nothing? What would it do to the culture of the RAF if those weird misfits with plastic collars weren't around any more? I'd say it'd help to usher in a new, cold, utilitarian, poisonous ethos.
I
hope it never comes to pass. I
fear someone is even now reading this, thinking how to spin the abolition of chaplaincy as a response to a groundswell of opinion from the front line. And I fear it'd be one of those actions whose practical impact is dwarfed by its symbolic impact. Chaos theory works for organisations too, and ditching chaplains could be the butterflies wings that change the climate.
There's a church in every town? True. There's a doctor's surgery, and a dentist, in every town, too.
OK. Rant over. Time for a beer!
adr