WALL STREET JOURNAL—October 31, 2024— Chaplains offer crucial spiritual care to patients pondering eternal questions.

A young girl with Down syndrome recently developed leukemia and was hospitalized far from home. Her mother was distraught: “Do you think God gave my daughter leukemia because, when she was born, I prayed for her to die?” she asked a hospital chaplain. Overwhelmed, and fearing her baby would suffer, the mother recalled once praying: “Please, God, take her.”

Hospitalized patients and their families often struggle with religious and spiritual quandaries but can’t attend their houses of worship or don’t have one. Chaplains thus fill crucial gaps. As the religious makeup of the U.S. has changed in recent years, their profession has begun to do so too. Board-certified chaplains are now increasingly trained to help patients of diverse beliefs. To learn about their vocations, I recently conducted an in-depth study, speaking with 50 chaplains from across the country and from different faiths.

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