First published in slightly different form in Military Spouse Magazine, Jan/Feb 2006.

When the service member's wife came into the chaplain's office, it was clear she'd been crying. Chaplain Brian Waite assured her that anything she said wouldn't leave his office, not without her permission. Soon she was hinting at abuse.

"I don't want to get my husband in trouble," she said softly, "but we need help."

According to the military, you can talk to a chaplain about anything and it's all confidential. But many states and religious denominations require clergy members to report abuse to the authorities, especially child abuse. So could the service member's wife count on Chaplain Waite to keep her secret?

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We hear it again and again -- from our service members, in spouse orientation sessions, at deployment briefings -- the chaplain is the one person in the military to whom you can talk about anything and trust that tomorrow it won't be all over the base. In a military setting, the most important reason for this may be military readiness.

Jennifer Marner's husband Josh was normally an easy-going guy, so she noticed when he started coming home irritable from Fort Bragg every night. It wasn't hard to pick a fight, which got him to spill his guts. He was having trouble with another soldier at work.

"Maybe you need to talk to someone besides me," she said.

So he went to the chaplain. "I told him the story of what was going on and I said I'd rather not have this come out," Josh recalls. "I just wanted advice and someone else to holler at because I was really frustrated with this guy." The chaplain suggested other ways Josh could deal with both his co-worker and his frustration. After he talked with the chaplain, Jennifer noticed that Josh began to seem like his old relaxed self again. He was also more effective at work.

"There is a military benefit to having some place a person can go to seek counsel and resolve the situation without worrying about a report being filed or charges made," says Chaplain Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cannon, staff chaplain at the Air Force Chief of Chaplains office.

"It also has military value for the families," he adds, because chaplains are a safe place for everyone to blow off steam. "They want to keep a stiff upper lip while their spouse is deployed, but sometimes that lip quivers a little. That's when it's good to talk to the chaplain. They'll say, 'I don't know why I'm here,' and start to cry. Soon they start talking, a stream of emotional consciousness, and after twenty minutes they feel better. Meanwhile their service member can stay focused on his or her mission instead of worrying because their spouse is upset."

Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) Peter Frederich, family ministries officer in the Army Chief of Chaplains office, agrees. "Ready families are healthy families who have a safe place, with the chaplain, to work through the unhealthy stuff."

But military readiness isn't the only reason chaplains stay mum. The oldest reason is religious. Denominations like the Roman Catholic church have long believed the act of confession is sacred. Confess your sins to a priest and it's just between you, the priest, and God. According to Chaplain Cannon, "The conversations are like the way people cry out to God. They cry out to a chaplain in the same way. It's a sacred place we occupy in that person's life, a unique relationship."

The newest reason is legal. In the case of US v. Moreno, a soldier killed his girlfriend, then went looking for a priest to confess to. He couldn't find one, so he confessed to a Protestant chaplain instead, who convinced him to turn himself in. So far so good. Then the chaplain provided a statement to the military, revealing the soldier had confessed. The soldier's conviction was later overturned because when the chaplain provided that statement, he violated what is called "privileged communication." It wasn't the chaplain's privilege to reveal his conversation with the soldier. The soldier owned that privilege. Without the soldier's permission, the chaplain could not reveal their conversation.

As a result, anything you communicate to a military chaplain is considered legally "privileged" if it passes three tests. The communication must be:

1. A formal act of religion or an act of conscience.

2. Made to a chaplain or a chaplain's assistant.

3. Intended to be confidential.

"Under general practice, we interpret that very broadly," says the Army's Chaplain Frederich. "Anytime you come to talk to a chaplain, it's privileged."

Or is it? Remember the wife who hinted about abuse to Chaplain Waite? Federal law may say that as a military chaplain he can't report it, but what if state law or his church require him to? The concept of supreme sovereignty dictates that federal law trumps state law, but in the case of privileged communication it hasn't been tested in court yet. And what if someone admits they plan to kill themselves or someone else? These situations may be rare, but the thought of them keeps new chaplains awake at night.

"The toughest areas are abuse and harm to other people. That's going to be a challenge," muses Lieutenant (junior grade) John Ault from his new duty station at the Naval Submarine Support Center Norfolk. He had just graduated from the Naval Chaplain School in Newport, Rhode Island, where new Navy chaplains undergo ten weeks of training. Recently, ethics instruction was expanded from just a few hours to forty hours. "Back at chaps school, our main discussion was, does this really mean absolute? That's what we kept asking them. And they said confidential means confidential."

But confidential doesn't mean chaplains have to sacrifice safety. A chaplain instructor at the Naval Chaplain School, Lieutenant Michael Moreno (no relation to the soldier who killed his girlfriend), explains, "There may be times you can't say anything, but that doesn't mean you can't do anything. You tell me you're going to hurt yourself or others, you just got yourself a new best friend. I'm your shadow now. The last thing a chaplain will do is let a wrong continue."

And as the Air Force's Chaplain Cannon points out, "They wouldn't be coming to talk to you if they didn't want help."

One thing settled it for Chaplain Ault, the new chaplain. He realized that while he might think he was helping someone by breaking confidentiality, he'd ruin his chances of helping anyone else ever again. "Once the chaplain talks, we eliminate ourselves from being effective for others," he says firmly. "No one else is going to come to us, so we might as well just get off the boat."

Occasionally, a chaplain learns that lesson the hard way.

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"Chaplain," Donna asked, "could I talk with you for a minute?"

Donna had stopped by her husband's office on base. He had stepped out for a minute but the chaplain was waiting for him, too, and Donna needed to talk to the chaplain herself. She pushed the door to, said, "Just between you and me..."and proceeded to explain she had a friend with a problem.

Sometimes when people tell a chaplain their "friend" has a problem, they're really talking about themselves. But Donna did have a friend with a problem. Donna knew the chaplain would soon be contacting her friend, and she knew her friend wanted nothing to do with any chaplain. Donna has been a military wife for twenty-two years. She's an active volunteer in the military's spouse support and mentoring programs. She's seen the good that chaplains can do. "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater," she remembers telling her friend. "I'll talk to the chaplain for you and tell him how you feel." So she did.

Later that day, Donna's husband was called in by his commanding officer, who said the information Donna had given the chaplain was inappropriate. "I think you did the right thing," Donna's husband told her that night. "But the CO told me to talk to you. He says it's got to stop."

Donna had thought her conversation with the chaplain was confidential. She says the chaplain never said it wasn't. Yet apparently the chaplain had gone to the CO.

Other commanding officers might have handled it differently. Retired Army tank battalion commander and leadership consultant Ralf Zimmerman lays it on the line. "As a commander I'm going to ask if the chaplain is a person I can use as a multipurpose problem solver in my unit. The chaplain can only do that if the individuals [in my command] trust that the chaplain will keep certain information confidential. The most important thing is that trust relationship."

In Donna's case, she felt betrayed and humiliated. She cried at first. But later a senior chaplain hosted a meeting between Donna and her chaplain. Her chaplain declined to comment for this article, but according to Donna, he eventually admitted his mistake and asked her to forgive him. He promised to take it as a learning experience. That's why Donna has asked that her real name not be used -- so this chaplain's chances of helping others won't be ruined.

The fallout could have been a lot worse. If Donna had been younger, it could have damaged her marriage; she and her service member might have concluded no chaplain could be trusted; military readiness might have suffered. But as a senior wife, Donna had perspective. In her volunteer work she had always leaned on her chaplains, whatever their faith background. "He was my right hand man," Donna says of a rabbi who was particularly helpful. "I could go to him with anything. Never once did it cross my mind that it would go anywhere else unless I gave him permission to talk about it."

Donna and the rabbi never discussed confidentiality. They just assumed, and in that case it worked. Most of the time it does. The concept of confidentiality seems so simple and absolute it's often taken for granted. But real life is complicated. People miscommunicate. They have conflicting expectations. They may not think through the consequences of their ethical decisions. States and religious groups interpret the issue differently, as do the Army, Air Force, and Navy. Even individual chaplains are allowed some leeway in cases that don't wind up in court. Currently, a working group of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board is attempting to develop a uniform policy on confidential communication for all the services.

In the meantime, Chaplain Moreno at the Naval Chaplain School admits, "There is some confusion among chaplains, commanders, and service members." To avoid confusion, he offers a simple suggestion: "Each chaplain should say, 'Of course this is confidential, this is how we do business.'"

If every chaplain started every counseling session with a statement about confidentiality and privileged communication, it could serve as a reminder to the chaplain while at the same time help the counselee to open up. Experienced chaplains have said they also mention it again at the end, especially if the confidentiality situation is sticky and needs clarification, or if a decision needs to be made. But if the chaplain doesn't bring it up and you're the one seeking help, you might want to ask about it, just to make sure everyone's on the same page.

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The service member's wife who came into Chaplain Brian Waite's office would have heard him say, "When you come in, when that door is shut, what you say to me stays with me unless you choose to give that up." She hinted at abuse in the family. Then she asked for help. Chaplain Waite identified resources for her and walked her through various options. When she got up to leave, she knew what she had to do. In the end, she got her family the help they needed.

"That happens every time," says Chaplain Waite, speaking from experience. Over the years he's served as a chaplain in both the Air Force and the Navy. "With the help of the objective outside view that I bring to the situation, they've been able to see the solution for themselves. For me, confidentiality is the starting place to find answers in a safe haven."