Chaplain

Kaplan (from the Latin capellanus " a ( Frankish ) court chapel associated clerics ", from Middle High German kaplan ) is an ecclesiastical office. In German-speaking countries a parochial vicar is an activity, which is subject to a pastor in the first years after his ordination, and yet bears no responsibility for a single parish. After cann. 564-572 CIC is now a priest meant by an extraterritorial pastoral area for a certain group of people, such as in hospitals, prisons and military facilities.

In most German dioceses, however, it is customary to give these pastors the pastor title ( for example, hospital pastor, prison chaplain or chaplain ), although no rights of a pastor can be derived from this title.

Depending on local custom, the chaplain is called as an employee of a parish priest in some dioceses vicar - a designation that the Code of Canon Law 1983 provides for this function: vicarius paroecialis. In the Bavarian language area and in the diocese of Trier also the name cooperator ( employees of the pastor ) is mostly used. In the Archdiocese of Vienna, the curate in the parishes were referred to 1938 as cooperators or Cooperatoren. By resolution of the Austrian Bishops' Conference of 28 September 1938, the German designation Kaplan was taken. Become quite uncommon are the names Adjunct and supernumerary. In communities with several young priests was formerly the latest service called adjunct, another vicar and the senior chaplain.