"The military chaplaincy is under threat by our own government as part of its social agenda."
A weekly column by Father George Rutler.
The Geneva Convention’s classification of military
chaplains as noncombatants has traditionally been interpreted in the
United States to mean that chaplains normally do not carry weapons. This
often puts them in precarious positions when they are in war zones.
Over four hundred chaplains have been killed in the line of duty.
Catholic chaplains are especially exposed to dangerous situations by
their obligation to administer Absolution and Anointing. They have
received every kind of decoration for valor, and seven have been awarded
the Medal of Honor.
All four chaplains awarded the Medal since the Civil War have been
Catholic. Among them, Lieutenant Vincent Capodanno, a Maryknoll priest
and Navy chaplain, who served with the Marine Corps and was killed while
aiding the second Platoon of M Company at the battle of Dong Son in
Vietnam, has been proposed for heaven’s highest honor, canonization as a
saint.
The military chaplaincy is under threat by our own government as
part of its social agenda. One year ago, the Army’s Office of the Chief
of Chaplains tried to forbid Catholic chaplains from reading a statement
from the Military Ordinary, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees
all priests in the Catholic Ordinariate for the Armed Forces, in which
he objected to federally mandated health insurance covering
sterilization, abortifacients and contraception in violation of the
right to religious freedom. Now the government would compel chaplains to
acquiesce in “same-sex” simulations of marriage. The Army’s deputy
chief of staff in charge of personnel has said that military members who
dissent from this agenda are “bigoted” and “need to get out.”
As behavior contrary to Christian morality becomes a civil right,
Catholics in particular could soon become, quite literally, outlaws. Our
current President recently announced that he will disobey a provision
in the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by his own hand, which
states that chaplains cannot be forced “to perform any rite, ritual or
ceremony that is contrary to the conscience, moral principles or
religious beliefs of the chaplain.”
I am always edified by the sacrificing spirit of good soldiers,
and as a chaplain to West Point alumni here in New York, I am pleased
when cadets serve at Mass. Governments that have tried to manipulate
soldiers and doctors and teachers in perverse ways have always had a
short shelf life. The nineteenth-century French political philosopher
Frédéric Bastiat warned: “When misguided public opinion honors what is
despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards
vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful,
applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a
nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the
terrible lessons of catastrophe.”
Military chaplains do not bear arms, but they have recourse to
another arsenal: “Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you
may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things
perfect” (Ephesians 6:11).
