The tenor and tone of many of the comments on this thread suggest that a great deal of misunderstanding and ignorance is at work.
First, the Catholic Church supplies Chaplains to the military services who are commissioned as officers of the Chaplains’ Corps and serve as members of the Armed Forces. The Catholic Church has been unable for some years to provide Priests in the numbers that are required based on location of military forces and percentages of servicemen who identify as members of the Catholic faith. These military chaplains are not affected by the shutdown and they are saying Mass as they have always done.
Because of the shortage of military chaplains, the government has contracted with local dioceses to provide Priests for scheduled Mass and other services. These arrangements are subject to the legal provisions of the contract, which vary from place to place. Just like other government contractors, some are working as normal, some are being told to stay home depending on the contract.
I would think that the Base Chaplain, if he has half a brain and isn’t a complete bureaucrat, could arrange for a Priest not associated with the contract in question to say Mass as an invited guest. This would avoid any contract legal issues and ensure that some level of ministry could continue. He could also arrange to have a military chaplain report on TDY, although that may not be an option in this case.
If someone is being bullheaded, lazy, or hamstrung; then, the faithful may have to go off base to attend Mass. This problem highlights a serious issue that has nothing to do with a government shutdown. The Catholic Church in America has a serious shortage of Priests. There are plenty of Baptist in the Chaplains’ Corps.
I understand this is what they are doing at the Naval base in San Diego. The priests there are going off base to administer the sacraments.
The problem is that Obama has also banned even volunteer Catholic priests from celebrating Mass.
For Baptists, this isn’t a problem, because Baptists aren’t supposed to go to church every Sunday, whereas Catholics do have a Mass obligation and are supposed to attend Mass every Sunday.
Obviously, if there’s no Mass and they can’t get off the base, God isn’t going to hold it against them!
But that’s the reason Obama is attacking Catholics.