Shutdown Impacts Chapel Services

October 3, 2013
By John Schlageter
John Schlageter is General Counsel of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.

If the government shutdown continues through the weekend, there will be no Catholic priest to celebrate Mass this Sunday in the chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors.

Military personnel enjoy, like all Americans, the First Amendment guarantee of the “Free Exercise” of their particular religious faith. But because military personnel are considered a “captive audience,” the laws of our country require the government to provide access to that faith. This is why we have a military chaplaincy. This all becomes very clear when one thinks of a military family stationed in Bahrain or Japan. They cannot walk down the street to the local synagogue, church, mosque, etc.

There is a chronic shortage of active duty Catholic chaplains. While roughly 25% of the military is Catholic, Catholic priests make up only about 8% of the chaplain corps. That means approximately 275,000 men and women in uniform, and their families, are served by only 234 active-duty priests. The temporary solution to this shortage is to provide GS and contract priests. These men are employed by the government to ensure that a priest is available when an active duty Catholic Chaplain is not present. With the government shutdown, many GS and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer. During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.

As an example, if a Catholic family has a Baptism scheduled this weekend at an Air Force with no active duty chaplain and that base is staffed by a GS or contract priest who is furloughed, unless they can locate a priest who is not a GS or contract priest, the Baptism is most likely cancelled. If you are a Catholic stationed in Japan or Korea and are served by a Contract or GS priest who is furloughed, unless you speak Korean or Japanese and can find a church nearby, then you have no choice but to go without Mass this weekend. Until the Federal Government resumes normal operations, or an exemption is granted to contract and GS priests, Catholic services are indefinitely suspended at many of those worldwide installations served by contract and GS priests.

http://www.milarch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dwJXKgOUJiIaG&b=8486699&ct=13344123