A Military-Eccelesiastical Complex?
May 7, 2008, 3:19 pm
Posted by Paul Lauritzen
Recently a new Archbishop for the Military Services was installed. While I certainly support the role of military chaplains, there is much in the special issue of Salute, the magazine of the Archdiocese of the Military Services, that is troubling. Those who have spoken of a military-ecclesiastical complex will find fodder here.
How does Rome find so many gems like this archbishop?
This archdiocese is one of only many military archdioceses around the world.
As a veteran and VA employee at the time, I began donating to the MilArch through the annual Federal Employee Campaign (our hospital had a full-time Jesuit chaplain).
When the former archbishop spoke out against gay clergy and never, to my knowledge, addressed the injustice of expelling gay personnel from the military, I could no longer in good conscience continue my financial support.
Our armed forces need Catholic chaplains. However, the MilArch archbishop should remember that he has gay and lesbian soldiers, airmen, and sailors who proudly and faithfully serve our country. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most military personnel have no problem with gay and lesbian comrades. Indeed, I’ve heard veterans tell me that they and others knew of gay soldiers, etc. in their units and accepted such personnel on an equal footing.
It’s time for the new archbishop to embrace gay and lesbian military personnel, to announce his support for their retention on active duty, and to work for full legal inclusion of such folks in the armed forces of the United States.
Only then will I consider resuming monetary donations to the MilArch. This archdiocese needs to become formally “catholic” as well as “Catholic.”
Much that is troubling???? Like what? Are we reading the same document?
Please expand, because I am not getting it.
I perused the SALUTE issue and, like Sean, did not see anything that I deemed “troubling.”
Paul, what gave you pause for concern?
Well, how about for starters: “Christ in the Combat Zone” and crosses being erected on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Even if you don’t subscribe to a strict view of the separation of church and state, you might be concerned about how these ideas will play in the Muslim world, not to mention with Muslim soldiers. And, frankly, the close identification of Christianity with the American military strikes me as blaphemous.
What’s wrong with “Christ in the Combat Zone”? If I were a grunt in the trenches, I’d like to know if a chaplain, Catholic or otherwise, were nearby. Just in case…
Erecting a cross on the deck of an aircraft carrier? It was a special occasion. Not much different from a Christian congregation arranging to have an Easter Sunrise Service on the hill of a publicly owned park. (I doubt one will see a cross erected on a carrier deck any other time of year.)
I do subscribe to the strict view of church-state separation. As for the Muslim world, they have their religious beliefs just as we have ours, albeit (in our case) a religiously pluralistic society. Last I knew, the armed forces have Muslim chaplains who work alongside their Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Protestant counterparts. Surely, Muslim soldiers have chaplains in Muslim countries.
I don’t see any problem with the “close identification” you’re concerned about.
Two additional thoughts:
Several of the MilArch’s bishops have been retired military chaplains. In addition, we may be seeing increasing numbers of future chaplains coming from the ranks of ex-military.
If I had my “druthers,” I’d like to see stateside arch/dioceses assume greater responsibility for providing chaplain services to stateside military installations. The particulars would have to be worked out between the MilArch ordinary and his stateside counterparts. Perhaps this kind of arrangement might assuage some of your concerns about too “close identification of Christianity with the American military?”
Both in clicking here and gioing to the Military Archdiocese’s website, I couldn’t get the current issueo of Salute.
There already does seem to be a divide here though. The need for service by clergy to the troops (clearly a genuine concern) and worry about the Church being “too close” to a military closely tied to n ideology of premption (also a concern.)
My guess is how well the leadership of the Archdiocese handles that perceptual divide will influence folks opinions of them.
Footnote problem from experience: a number of ex chaplains who’ve served in parishes I’ve been in seem to think the military is the perfect paradigm for the way the Church should operate – and i see that as a problem.
Archbishop Broglio’s message in this issue of Salute struck me as self-puffery. Look at me> Ain’t you lucky to have me as archbishop! Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe I don’t want to get it. Some sign of humility and modesty would be nice, at least inn my book.
I started to write a responsive comment, but I find us just can’t. Unbelievable.
“Footnote problem from experience: a number of ex chaplains who’ve served in parishes I’ve been in seem to think the military is the perfect paradigm for the way the Church should operate – and i see that as a problem.”
After retiring from the military, I think the current operational situation in the Church is far worse than the U.S. military’s mode of operation, which concededly has its own shortcomings.
If the Church had been run along military lines in recent years, I can pretty much assure you more than several Bishops would have been court-martialed for derelicition of duty instead of reassignments to Roman cathedrals–not a bad thing in my book.
The military is not too keen on orthodoxy but far more keen on orthopraxis. The military tolerates a surrpising amount of diversity for those who perform at high levels.
As Sean writes, one is at a loss to understand if there is a problem. There is something troublingly similar in the grumblings to those of pacifists during the 1914/18 war; and those of pacifists in the 1920s and 1930s, whose activities ensured that “the side with the moral right would enter the 1939/45 war much weakened” [Dorothy L. Sayers]. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
“Si vis pacem, para bellum”
Since the US currently spends as much for war each year as the rest of the world put together, I don’t think you need to worry about it too much.