Catholic Coverage on Military Installations

BY ARCHBISHOP TIMOTHY P. BROGLIO

Recent meetings with the Chiefs of Chaplains of the Army, Navy, and Air Force have led me to address anew the question of pastoral care of Catholics. All three chaplain corps address the issue in different ways and the reflections below probably respond primarily to the approach used most recently in the U.S. Navy.

The military desires measurable data to make determinations: number of people at a chapel service, registered counseling sessions, numbers who frequent a ministry center or chapel sponsored activity, and so forth. The metrics are important, but do they tell the whole story?

Conversations with those who analyze data frequently center around the chapel and who is present for services on Sunday and during the week. Certainly, chapel use is an important category and the presence of chapels, medical facilities, physical fitness centers, theaters, commercial enterprises, golf courses, and gas stations probably all date to a time when many military members lived or were obliged to live on the installation to which they were assigned.

Changing that principle is probably necessary and should be global, i.e., if chapels are going to be closed, then perhaps all of those other facilities should be re-examined, as well. [Of course, it is not really about closing chapels but eliminating on-base Catholic communities.]

However, should that mean that a Catholic soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman, or Space Force guardian, spouse, or dependent only sees a priest if he or she goes off post? Are we communicating that other religions can have ministers (if they are chaplains), but there will be no Catholic ministerial presence on an installation? Is there a danger of creating a separate but equal system for meeting the needs of Catholic members of the Armed Forces?

I have heard proposals about organizing transportation to the local Catholic parish for Mass, but

again, that reduces Catholic needs to Sunday Mass. What about the sacrament of penance (confession), consultation with a priest, religious education, faith formation, and sacramental preparation for baptism, confirmation, first Communion, penance, and marriage?

The danger is the reduction of the chaplaincy on CONUS military installations to a largely if not exclusively Protestant presence. Is that what we want to do?

As the chief shepherd charged by the Catholic Church with pastoral care of the men and women in uniform and their families, I fear that the reduction of ordained Catholic personnel to those who are in the military will impoverish the ministry offered to all the military, reduce vocations from the military, and render First Amendment privileges a dead letter on the same installations.

Let me explain.

If there is no Catholic priest (uniformed or contract) on the installation, that voice will be entirely absent. A sailor who wants to talk to a priest will not be able to do so. A commander who wants the Catholic viewpoint before making a decision will have to contact someone from the outside.

Around 20% of the military is Catholic, yet you would have no one

continued on page 6

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

on a given installation ministering to the single largest denomination in the military.

It would, of course, be necessary to alert the U.S. Bishops to this absence. They may, in response, discourage Catholics from entering the military.

The military is the single largest source of priestly ordinations in the U.S. every year (15% in 2020). 73% of young men begin discernment for the priesthood, because a priest suggests that they do so. Do we really want to eliminate any possible contact between service men and priests on CONUS installations?

There are examples of chaplains of other faith groups who were raised as Catholics, but while in the military their access to only nonCatholic chaplains prompted them to leave the Catholic faith and seek ministry in a non-Catholic denomination. Diminishing the Catholic presence on military installations will only exacerbate that phenomenon and ultimately reduce even further the number of Catholic priests in the military.

Is it not also possible to examine the use of contractors (priests) to minister in deployed locations and on ships? On my last visit to Afghanistan, for every military member there were three civilians!

Mandatory Retirement Dates are routinely deferred for medical and dental personnel. May the same low density, high demand waiver not also be applied to priests? If the military has to pay continually to send a service member or dependent offpost for treatment, is consideration not given to hiring a specialist or sending a uniformed person to obtain competency in that specialty?

Certainly those charged with determining the use of funds look for tangible results, but are First Amendment rights really the most opportune category for cost cutting, especially when those budgets represent a fraction of the total Department of Defense budget?

This reflection would be incomplete without a reference to the Air Force Religious Professional Deferment Program, which allows a cadet at the Air Force Academy or an airman with a service commitment to defer their commitments, enter a formation program, and fulfill their commitment as an Air Force Chaplain. At least six priests and seminarians have profited from this program. V