Army Chaplains Stopped From Reading Bishop’s Letter

Investor's Business Daily ^ | February 9, 2012 | IBD staff

[raptor22]

Constitution: The Air Force removes a reference to God from its logo as the Army forbids Catholic chaplains from reading an archbishop's letter to those in uniform. What's next, the crosses at Arlington National Cemetery?

'It is a blow to a freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have seen your buddies fall in battle," read the letter from Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services to the Catholic chaplains in the U.S. military.

The letter that the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains kept from being read to Catholic soldiers concerned the recent Health and Human Services mandate requiring Catholic institutions to provide contraceptive services.

The letter was similar to others recently distributed by the Catholic bishops of the U.S. to be read from the pulpit in each parish. Bishops were allowed to tailor the letters for their particular audience.

That was what Archbishop Broglio did when he wrote the "blow to freedom" line above, adding: "The federal government, which claims to be 'of, by, and for the people,' has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people — the Catholic population — and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faith."

He included the pledge that "the Church cannot — and will not — comply with this unjust law."

The Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains apparently was not amused and sent out its own letter forbidding Catholic chaplains from reading their archbishop's communication to Catholic soldiers, in part because it was judged to encourage civil disobedience and could be read as seditious against the commander in chief.

[raptor22]

Backward Christian Soldiers

[Mach9]

Backward, Christian Soldiers. Nice take—bumper sticker material, for sure.

I wonder if anyone’s bothered to identify the chaplains who refused to comply with the One’s order. Surely, some did. It’s not like time in the brig would bother them.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Army Chaplains Stopped From Reading Bishop’s Letter

Correction: Some Army Chaplains Stopped From Reading Bishop’s Letter

More than one Catholic chaplain who spoke to us off the record confirmed that many chaplains disobeyed this instruction and read the letter anyway.

[raptor22]

First Amendment Ping

[metmom]

It’s push come to shove time.

This has GOT to stop.

[combat_boots]

ping for an image or poster idea

[WKB]

Ping

[the invisib1e hand]

I also saw a headline that Denver got 6’ of snow last week. Can anyone verify that?

[SZonian]

Just like the “morale meetings” in Saudi, Chaplains are quite adept at finding ways around certain restrictions.

All they would have to do is provide a piece of paper with the web address of a web page where the servicemembers could read it at their leisure.

Or conduct a “Bible study” off post and discuss it freely.

I don’t agree with them being stopped, but they are in the military, subject to orders.

[Elsie]

I don’t agree with them being stopped, but they are in the military, subject to orders.

[loveliberty2]

This Administration cleverly used a Trojan Horse called "health care reform," and now "women's health," in its attempt to blatantly attack the First Amendment's specific protection for the free exercise of religious belief.

Now, in the case of the prohibition on Chaplains, they are attacking another prong of that Amendment--freedom of speech.

Enough already! During the Revolutionary Period, the pulpit in America was resounding with the ideas of liberty, motivating "the People" to assert their Creator-endowed rights, and to reject the ideas of tyranny, no matter how they were cloaked.

They have been late to the battle of late, but now, they have been awakened.

In this particular case, the assault has come on just one doctrinal belief of one major faith group. Rest assured, though, that people of faith from all sects will be able to discern that if the assault can be framed as "women's health and contraception" today, it can be against any number of deeply-held beliefs and practices tomorrow.

James Madison declared: "Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant—they have been cheated; asleep—they have been surprised; divided—the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ... the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government, they should watch over it ... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free."

[SZonian]

Poor analogy.

They can separate...if obeying their superior officers is causing them a conflict with their faith.

They have options here.

[ripley]

“...the Catholic population...”

But a large number of them will probably vote for him again.

IMHO