More Mormons in chaplain training program

Several trends are playing

out in the class of a chaplain-training program that will graduate 20 students

on Thursday.

One is that the demand for chaplains is

growing, according to chaplain Mark Allison, training supervisor of the Clinical

Pastoral Education Residency Program hosted at the Veterans Administration

medical center in Salt Lake City.

__IMAGE1__Allison's students come from a broad

variety of religious traditions. His graduates include one Buddhist, a

Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Nazarene, an Anglican and two Roman Catholics. But

he is noticing more of his students are Mormons; and that an increasing number

of his Mormon students are women.

\"More and more employers are seeing the

benefit of having a chaplain on staff to help with morale,\" he said of the

increase in demand for chaplains.

\"They've found in

many places that having a chaplain instead of a social worker, or in addition to

that social worker, has been a medicine of sorts to help good employees cope

with adversity or changes in life that tend to smack up against the spiritual

side of people.\"

Frank Clawson, military affairs

coordinator for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, acknowledges

that surge as well. \"A lot of larger corporations will have industrial chaplains

in their workplace. A chaplain can kind of help with ethics training and things

like that for their employers.\"

Allison said the increase in the number of

Mormon women going through his program can be explained by two words firmly

planted in the Mormon vernacular: \"Compassionate service.\"