Comment 12 by Vorlund WTF! It is exactly the proximity enabled by this sort of situation that paedophiles exploit to groom their victims. With the Christian Bugggers (Brothers) activities in Australia, you'd think the Aussies would be rather more circumspect about allowing a priest anywhere near a school.

They're generally not priests (might be some retired ones somewhere), Generally, they are young evangelical Christians. The controversy is mainly around the fact that schools struggle with too few qualified councillors who can help students with issues. Essentially the chaplains offer a cheap alternative to councillors, they are subsidised, but the school does have to front up all the cash from their budget - as they would if they employed someone with formal qualifications in dealing with students suffering from a variety of trauma.