UNITED STATES, November 2, 2015 (RNS): They can be found on the battlefield, at a chicken-processing plant and behind the locked gates of a prison. They are chaplains, and as a two-hour, two-part documentary airing on some PBS stations beginning Tuesday (Nov. 3) points out, they minister to people of all religions and none in places where they work and live. “Their ministry really does bring them into some of the most extraordinary places where people are in crisis and need,” said Journey Films producer/director Martin Doblmeier in an interview about “Chaplains.”
At the maximum-security Oregon State Penitentiary, Chaplain Karuna Thompson, a Buddhist, organizes religious events ranging from evangelical praise and worship to a Native American sweat lodge ceremony. “If I had to live in a 5-by-8 bathroom with another person I would lose my mind,” she says in the film, referring to a prison cell. “What a chaplain does is lean into the painful places.”
Doblmeier, 64, who also has produced “Bonhoeffer” and “The Power of Forgiveness,” said he chose to include the Oregon chaplain because her work demonstrates tangible results. “She was a great example of working outside of her own faith tradition, her willingness to do that, and actually have documentable evidence that she’s part of a team that’s really making a difference,” he said. Doblmeier, a Catholic, hopes the series will not only teach viewers about the role of chaplains but also give them insights into faiths that are different from their own. “To really celebrate — not just tolerate but celebrate — what others believe and celebrate the best of what they believe,” he said, “I think enriches us all.”