In a move that Archbishop for the Military Services, USA, Timothy Broglio says is “injurious to the practice of the Catholic faith on Army installations,” the U.S. Army Installation Management Command has cancelled all religious support contracts for Army chapels, including those for Religious Education coordinators, Catholic Pastoral Life coordinators, and musicians.

 

These services are vital to Catholic chaplains, given the extreme under-representation of Catholics in Army chaplaincy services, Archbishop Broglio explained in a pastoral letter sent to members of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and also to every member of Congress. While “about twenty percent of soldiers are Catholic,” he notes, “less than 5.5% of the Chaplain Corps is Catholic.”

 

“There are about six Protestant chaplains for every 1,000 Protestant soldiers, “per a RAND report cited by Archbishop Broglio, but only “one Catholic chaplain for every 1,000 Catholic soldiers.”  Catholic chaplains serve six times as many soldiers as their Protestant counterparts.

“Moreover,” the archbishop writes, with “Catholic chaplains most often assigned full-time to operational units, such as brigades and battalions,” the demands and “operational tempo” of those units “make it impossible for a Catholic chaplain to oversee the daily operations of chapel programs without professional support.”

 

The U.S. Army’s cancelation of religious support contracts, cuts off the Catholic chaplains’ vital professional support. This “over-burdens Catholic chaplains,” writes Archbishop Broglio. It has a “negative impact” on “Catholic soldiers serving in the U.S. Army and their families.”  And it “impedes the constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion, especially for Catholics.”

 

Please write to your Congressional representatives, in the House and Senate, referencing the letter they received from Archbishop Broglio, and urging them to reverse this unjust mandate that unduly burdens Catholic chaplaincy services in the U.S. Army.

 

Read more: https://tinyurl.com/mt83cj4v

 

“Members of the military are not excluded from the protection

granted by the First Amendment”

- U.S. Military Religious Liberty Protection Kit; First Liberty.org