As a chaplain, I encountered more than a few difficult ethical choices over thirty-five years first in the American and then in the Canadian military. Most of those choices involved a conflict between my ethics and my church's, between my ethics and the military's, or between my professional responsibilities as a religious counsellor and my professional responsibilities as a military officer. Let us take these conflicts in order.

Conscience v. Church
Generally, a chaplain is given a military commission because she is already in "Holy Orders," that is, because a church (or other religious society) has ordained her to its ministry. Most ordination services include a promise to conform to church doctrine, to spread the church's teachings, and to obey the appropriate authorities within the church. That is to say, the chaplain enters the military with a previous contract; she can honestly function as a chaplain only as long as she upholds that contract.

My church's attitude toward the military has changed substantially since World War II and so has its attitude toward those whose ministry is performed within the military. The chaplain's role is no longer to "praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." For example, at the beginning of the Gulf War, my religious superior, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, joined with senior clergy in other churches to condemn as an "unjust war" the action the allies were undertaking under Article 7 of the United Nations Charter. That put me in an untenable position.

Central to the ethical code of a soldier are various codifications of international humanitarian law, the "Geneva Conventions." These set out when force may legitimately be used, as well as how it may legitimately be used. The Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials ruled out the defense "just obeying orders." Each soldier is responsible for deciding whether a superior's orders are consistent with the Geneva Conventions. He cannot go to war in good conscience just because his country orders him. So, if I had taken the Primate's condemnation at face value, I would have had to conclude that every Anglican in the military, myself included, was engaging in an unjust war and was therefore party to a "war crime" as the Nuremberg trials defined it.

A Canadian soldier being tried for war crimes may seem a farfetched idea. It is not. Recently, the International War Crimes Tribunal sentenced a soldier serving in Bosnia to ten years in prison for murder committed under the direct orders of his commander. And right now, hearings in Canada on the conduct of its soldiers in Somalia seem likely to end, like the Peers Commission after the My Lai Incident, with several Canadian soldiers being tried for war crimes.

So, as an Anglican chaplain, I felt compelled to respond to the Primate's condemnation of the war. Two options were obvious. I could resign my commission, accepting the Primate's authority at the cost of my ministry. Or I could, instead, refuse to obey any order related to the war, though the military looks with great disfavor on anyone refusing to obey an order in time of war, even in a relatively limited war like that against Iraq. I chose a third option.

I wrote a paper in which I set out the facts as I understood them, including the church's understanding of what made a war "unjust" and the procedures necessary to make an authoritative finding that a war is unjust. I then wrote the Primate, informing him that although he might legitimately hold a personal opinion about the justness or unjustness of the war, he lacked authority to condemn the war on behalf of the Anglican Church without appropriate "consultation." Until the Church undertook such a consultation, I was free to follow my conscience and serve as chaplain to those at war.

Some time later the Primate agreed that his condemnation of the war was a personal opinion, not a teaching of the Anglican Church of Canada. He also admitted that there were legitimate differences of opinion on the war within the Church.

Conscience v. the Military
I experienced a different conflict in my service in the U.S. Army. In late 1972, President Nixon ordered B-52s to bomb Hanoi and Haiphong. This was high altitude area bombing, certain to do great "collateral damage." At the center of the target area were the two largest hospitals in North Vietnam. Hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law. Along with several other chaplains, I felt required to resign to express disapproval of this violation of military ethics.

Though I was not then on active duty, I had some sixteen years of mili tary service. My "early retirement" meant a substantial financial sacrifice. Once taken, the decision was final. You can only "fall on your sword" once.

Client v. Military
Conflicts of the kinds discussed so far are rare, though memorable. The last kind I want to discuss comes up much more often. That is the conflict between a chaplain's responsibility to those individuals to whom she minis ters, her "clients," and her responsibil ity to the organization whose chaplain she is, a certain unit of the military. All the helping professions providing members to the military—medicine, law, social work, psychology, and so on—share such conflicts with the ministry insofar as each recognizes an obligation of confidentiality. Their members, each both a member of a particular profession and an officer, must sometimes choose between maintaining client confidence and doing what a soldier should.

My genteral approach to this conflict of roles was to clarify what the client wanted to keep confidential before I knew too much and then to make an explicit commitment. Early in a counseling session, I would say something like this: "Do you want me to do anything about this situation, or is your purpose simply to come here and talk about it to relieve your stress? If you just want to talk, then I can and will promise you confidentiality. But if you want me to do something about it, you will have to trust my professional judgment about releasing information to the commanding officer. I will only release what I believe he needs to make a proper decision, but since the decision is his and not mine, I may have to tell him more than you or I would like."

Typically, the client's response was, "Padre, I trust you. You do what you need to do to help me work this out."

Sometimes, however, the person in one of these "talking situations" would ask for confidentiality and then provide information implicating policy. If the implications were serious enough, I would try to get formal permission to release the information. If I could not, I might nonetheless go to the commander and—without using any names or identifying details—tell him that I had reason to believe he needed to look into conduct related to the appropriate policy. This way of presenting what I knew seemed to me to protect my client's privacy while carrying out my responsibilities as an officer.

The Danger of Careerism
Trying to serve both your clients and the military has its risks. I have known some chaplains who, I believe, became too much involved in the organization, to the point that they lost sight of their ministry. Chaplains as well as line officers can become careerists, willing to enhance their PERs (performance evaluation reports) at the expense of their primary function, the ministery. Sometimes the closeness of relationships in a line unit can lead a chaplain to substitute unit culture for the profession's higher standard. This is particularly true in so-called "elite units" with an us-versus-them attitude.

I tried to avoid this risk by being careful not to make decisions for my clients. I would place before the client the best options I could see, as completely as I could see them. Then I would ask the client to tell me what should be done.

Priest and Soldier
Chaplains must walk a line different from the ordinary officer's. Chaplains should never forget that they are responsible to two professions, to two chains of command, a line commander and the church that ordained them. The chaplain is and must be a tightrope walker, aware constantly of balancing the needs of the individual, the church, and the military. Chaplains are soldiers, but unarmed. Although they go where their troops go, they are in a different category. For example, if captured and sent to a prisoner-of- war camp, they will be "detained persons," not "prisoners of war." The laws of war recognize that chaplains, like doctors, have different responsibilities from those of combat troops. The laws of war provide for the continuation of their work even under prison conditions.

Walking the chaplain's tightrope is, though not without difficulties, well within human powers. Many men and women have, I believe, done it remarkably well. Certainly, I have never regretted my dual vocation as priest and soldier.