Presence in pilgrimage: an exploration of chaplaincy in Catholic secondary schools in England and Wales

In spite of a decrease in institutionalised church attendance, the search for what might be understood as a plausible belief within a lived faith is enacted every day in Catholic schools across England and Wales. In many schools, the person who actualises and personifies this desire is the school chaplain. But who is a chaplain? What do they do? What difference do they make? Presence in Pilgrimage seeks to answer these questions by asking the people whose lives are lived at the heart of this enquiry - teachers, chaplains and students. Narratives of theory and experience are interwoven to elucidate the contribution that school chaplaincy makes to the mission of Catholic education and thus its status as a primary ministry of the contemporary Catholic Church. In so doing, Maureen Glackin contends that where a financial, spiritual and emotional commitment to school chaplaincy exists, a unique relatonship of ''presence in pilgrimage'' is realised in which staff celebrate and students revel.