Priests are well worth celebrating – Barometer-OT

It started with an advertisement for telephone counseling in Östersundsposten 1956. Initiator was the clergyman Erik Bern ran and British model. Already in 1959 were linked with the priest on duty emergency services. Today interacts Swedish dioceses around the business. There are 650 priests receive calls in the evenings and nights.

Monica Eckerdal, , which is the national coordinator for on-call priest, highlights the counseling room is a safety valve in the community. To anonymously able to get the support of a priest who has absolute secrecy, not for records or cost anything is a unique community. 112, a person can call without having a penny left on their prepaid cards, and the call does not appear on your phone bill.

Both of these aspects are particularly important for vulnerable people, those without financial resources or women who live in abusive relationships, for example, . The majority of calls are about the loneliness many people experience. On-call priest has moved with the times. Today, there are opportunities to chat with a priest or send letters via the Internet, in ways accessible even younger people. The service is enclosed with the security and content of the online communication is encrypted and will disappear after the termination.

But just a few years ago, the entire structured activities threatened. In 2013 Alerting service Investigation suggested that only so-called blue-light activities could be linked to the emergency number 112. Heavy consultation bodies as the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL) dismissed the proposal and highlighted on duty priest’s action, which relieves other social actors.

What is distress and responsibilities will the community have for different types of assistance, asked themselves the proposal’s critics. Emergency efforts by the hotline is not lacking. Talk with people who have thoughts of suicide can be the difference between life and death. When a person has taken the step to call is an opportunity to reach. The availability and knowing where to turn, then, A and O.

The proposal to remove the on-call priest from 112 was thankfully mothballed. According to a recent survey by Sifo feel 73 percent to the service and 82 percent think it is important. Since 2008, the number of calls has increased steadily.

Political parties from right to left, speaks in hot day for civil society organizations. There is a lot in it. On-call priest’s civil society at its best: the service has grown out of a need, it is known, sought after and has great credibility and – not least – it does not burden the State’s budget.

The red-green government’s views on how civil society activities seems to be another. The Government has given directives and money to religious groups to work on various issues, such as countering radicalization. It may sound laudable, but that the state gives religious communities assignments and finances business is fundamentally problematic. The initiatives and resources should faiths stand for themselves.