SU Logo Transparent

ANN SMITH

United Kingdom, 72, Retired, former University Catholic Chaplain Oxford and London, HIV Research Middlesex hospital London, HIV Corporate Strategist CAFOD

The Joys and Hopes, Griefs and Anxieties of Employment as a Lay Chaplain

In 1978 I joined the Oxford University Catholic Chaplaincy as lay chaplain, and from 1984 when I took up an HIV-research post in London, worked in a London chaplaincy team. 

In my early years most chaplains were priests. Gradually more chaplaincies employed lay people. We formed a lay chaplains support group and shaped collaborative ministry models, addressed contractual, formation and financial challenges, all supported by priest-colleagues.

 We reported our experiences at national conferences. In 1986 I became the first non-priest chair of the national conference, where our model was gaining increasing support. By 1988 there were 12 lay chaplains (not religious sisters) and 18 religious sisters in a total of 100 Catholic chaplains.

After four years of combining laboratory research and work as chaplain I needed to choose between them. My diocese agreed to employ me full-time. I resigned my research post. 

A month later a priest colleague
informed the bishop he would not accept lay chaplains when he led the team. My contract was reduced to one year. I protested, the chaplains conference protested to the bishop, who sympathised in private but supported his priest in public. 

I lost my post and with it my home and financial support. I was devastated, felt crushed by the institutional church. I survived through support from friends and (eventually) counselling. 

I will not leave because, despite repeated battering by clericalism, it is MY church too and here I stay to claim my
place.