Excerpt:
The Illinois State Police Department currently has 37 chaplains or volunteer clergy who provide spiritual support for troopers, other employees and their families. Most are Christian; some are Jewish; and until last December, none was Muslim. That is when a Chicago Islamic leader named Kifah Mustapha went through the training and became the department's first Muslim chaplain, its 'pillar of the state police.'
Police work can be stressful and sometimes traumatic. Chaplains are there to take the edge off.
"If there is any crisis, we do crisis intervention, very often we're involved in critical incident debriefing," said Father Johnpaul Cafiero, Illinois State Police chaplain.
Last December at Illinois State Police headquarters, Sheikh Kifah Mustapha became the department's first and only Muslim chaplain. Mustapha was one of seven ministers who went through chaplain orientation training.