How is Military Chaplaincy in Europe Portrayed in European Scientific Journal Articles between 2000 and 2019? A Multidisciplinary Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is highly interesting, well researched and studies a rarely researched subject. It is worth mentioning that the comparisons are particularly instructive and well chosen by a convincing research method. The article can serve as an excellent example for evaluating themes on the basis of statistics.

Author Response

I thank You for this review. The article has been changed to cover all the years from 2000 to 2019 to get even comprehensive portrait of the European military chaplaincy in the 21st century so far.

Reviewer 2 Report

This article has the merit of providing an overview on quite recent academic literature on the topic of military chaplaincy. I find it well written, organized and presented. I would prefer in any case some extension in the research. Concretely I suggest some points:

The first concerns the range of the study. A systematic review usually gathers a greater number of articles or books or edited chapters. The amount of articles in this case is rrather scarce. I suggest to expand the range, for instance adding more years: from 2000 to 2019; or covering more areas, like other Western countries. In any case, it would ideal to increase the number of entries in the list to offer a sounder systematic review.

The second concern regards the absence in the article of possibly the greatest challenge that today face military and other institutional chaplains: the secularization of many such institutions, posing a serious threat to that religious function. It is happening in some areas, even for hospital chaplains. Then secularization clearly influences on how those chaplains live and understand their missions, which somme times suffers a process of 'internal secularization'. Is this challenge completely absent in the reviewed literature? If this is the case, the authors need to point to it.

The last indication regards the idea of social and cultural evolution of that institution. Probably the historical studies offer a hint; however it would be interesting to explore to what extent such evolution can be traced and which changes can be spotted in that chaplaincy. The text offers indications - "The changing nature... " "Changes...". It would be interesting to describe them in terms of social and cultural evolution, and hence as adaptations looking for survival or improvement.

Author Response

Thank You for this constructive review.

As suggested the article has been extended to cover the years from 2000 to 2019 to get even more extensive description of the military chaplaincy studies in the 21st century so far. This was the biggest revision of the article.

The secularisation and it's effects to the public institutions through chaplaincy are also covered in the articles as the temporal range is widened. 

The articles are fragmented into many different states and armed forces, not to mention the temporal range of the publications, so to indicate traces of cultural evolution of each case would extend the article a bit too much from the original idea. But this is an excellent observation to point out and will be definitely acknowledged in the future articles.

Reviewer 3 Report

The article presents a general overview of the topic (military chaplaincy and professionalisation processes as discussed in a number of scientific articles). which is well rounded and clearly expressed. The structure and flow of the text and its main arguments are well situated.

There are a small number of issues regarding concepts that need to be addressed or at least clarified (all detailed comments are in the attached article draft). For instance the word professionalism should in several instances be replaced with professionalisation in order to fit the content of a concept that is being discussed.

Overall comment, this article is publishable after language and minor content revisions.

Author Response

Thank You for this constructive review.

The article has been extended to cover the years from 2000 to 2019 to get even more extensive description of the military chaplaincy studies in the 21st century so far. This was the biggest revision of the article. The secularisation and it's effects to the public institutions through chaplaincy are also covered in the articles as the temporal range is widened. 

The minor issues regarding some terms will be adjusted in the final language revision if this article is published.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors of this study have followed my suggestions, expanding the range of reviewed papers and including some reference to secularization and chaplaincy. I would like the review could tell more about that issue.

In any case the article offers a good systematic review on the topic and deserves to be published.