Father Peter Whelan

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Army: Fr. Kapaun worthy of Medal of Honor

From The Wichita Eagle

By Roy Wenzl

Letter from the secretary of the Army about Father Kapaun

Father Emil Kapaun, the U.S. Army chaplain who died in a prison camp after saving dozens of soldiers' lives in the Korean War, is deserving of the Medal of Honor, the secretary of the Army has determined.

Kapaun, a native of Pilsen, in Marion County, and a former parish priest there, died of starvation and pneumonia in the prison camp at Pyoktong, North Korea, on May 23, 1951; he was 35. Soldiers who were with him have said that the communist Chinese camp guards murdered him because he rallied fellow starving soldiers to pray, to stay alive and to stay true to their country in the face of relentless brainwashing sessions.

Fellow prisoners of war have pleaded with the military for decades to give Kapaun the Medal of Honor. As a result, Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, as early as April 2001 asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to review Kapaun's eligibility for the honor.

In a letter Tiahrt received this week, Army Secretary Pete Geren wrote, "After giving this request careful, personal consideration, I have determined that Chaplain Kapaun's actions in combat operations and as a prisoner of war in Korea warrant award of the Medal of Honor.

"This brave Soldier clearly distinguished himself by his courageous actions. The Army and our nation are forever grateful for his heroic service."

Tiahrt said Thursday that the decision is not entirely complete. Congress and President Obama must sign off on it.

"But it's the Secretary of the Army who does the research and makes the key recommendation," Tiahrt said. "This is huge, and I'm very happy about this."

Tiahrt himself called Kapaun's remaining immediate family — his brother, Eugene, and Eugene's wife, Helen, who live in Bel Aire. The news stunned Helen, who spoke for her ailing husband.

"We are proud of him, as we should be," she said.

"But I don't think Father Emil would have wanted honors for himself. He would have said, 'Oh, shucks,' and thrown off any thoughts about honors to someone else."

The Roman Catholic Church has for several decades conducted a separate investigation to determine whether Kapaun should be declared a saint. That investigation has gained strength in recent months.

The Vatican earlier this year sent an investigator to Wichita to interview families and their doctors who say their children miraculously recovered from what looked like fatal medical problems after they prayed to the soul of Kapaun. Proving at least two miracles is a requirement for considering sainthood in the church.

The military during the Korean War had already awarded Kapaun the Distinguished Service Cross, its second-highest award. But fellow POWS said he deserved the nation's highest award.

A number of them dictated notarized affidavits testifying to his heroism under fire and in prison. Several fellow prisoners, after they were released at the end of the war, came to Wichita and Pilsen to extol Kapaun's heroism.

Kapaun was a chaplain of the 8th Cavalry Regiment of the First Army Division during the Korean War. Soldiers in that outfit saw him run through machine gun and artillery fire during a number of battles, dragging wounded soldiers to safety.

Four months after the war began, with the communist North Korean Army falling apart and the American army apparently victorious, the Chinese Army suddenly entered the war. Kapaun's 8th Cavalry regiment was surrounded and nearly annihilated by tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers in November 1950.

American soldiers who escaped the battle outside the North Korean village of Unsan said Kapaun refused to leave the wounded even after officers ordered and soldiers screamed at him to leave the battlefield.

In the following six months, on a horrific death march to prison camps and then in two prison camps just south of the Chinese border, Kapaun saved many lives. He escaped numerous times to steal food to bring back to starving prisoners, washed the filthy underwear of sick soldiers too feeble to do it themselves, and made pots and pans out of shredded roofing tin to boil the only clean water soldiers drank in the camps.

Soldiers said he used many skills he told them he'd learned as a farm boy growing up outside Pilsen.

They said he was a devout priest who violated camp rules every night by saying the rosary with fellow soldiers; but he sometimes spoke four-letter-words after confronting vicious guards mistreating prisoners.

When starving soldiers, freezing in subzero weather, began to hoard or steal food from one another, Kapaun would give his own food away and bless it in front of the soldiers as "food we cannot only eat but share."

"By offering pieces of his clothing and giving portions of his own meager rations to his injured comrades, Chaplain Kapaun unwittingly weakened his resistance which, in turn, hastened his untimely death," Tiahrt wrote Rumsfeld in 2001.

Helen Kapaun said she and the family were "shocked" when former POWs came home after the war and told hundreds of stories of her brother-in-law's heroics.

"All we knew of him was that he was a good priest and a good man," she said. "My husband had said that Father Emil was a man who was always religious and always meant what he said."

"Bless Me Father!"

Written by Fr. Jose Bautista-Rojas, LT, CHC, USN (photo at left)
Monday, 31 December 2007 00:21
Thank you Lord for my priesthood!

01Jan08: What am I, a priest, doing in Iraq? God brought me here to be with my Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers. I am here to bring God to them and to bring them to God. Every day is a different story.

The other day, a young Marine arrived to SSTP (Shock, Surgical and Trauma Platoon) hospital. He was so young and at the age where he was just starting to experience life. He had lost his legs from the waist down; he had a very low pulse. There was something special about his young man that made him different from every other one that arrived at the SSTP hospital up to that date. I knew him personally. He attended Mass twice a month while the other days he went on missions. It is different when you know someone personally. I still remember his face; he would ask for a blessing after each Mass. He would tell me: "Bless me, Father, I need your blessing." These are the last words that I heard from him a week ago. His words till resounded over and over in my head, "Bless me, Father." I will not give his real name out of respect for the family.

I could not control my right hand while holding Jose's, praying to God for him; my hand was shaking. In my mind, I was asking God to save Jose. I was thinking of his parents, of his brothers, of his friends, but especially of his mother. Lord, do not shatter Jose's mother's heart. Save him, Lord! Bring him back to his mother alive.

I was looking around the operating room. The doctors were speaking to Jose telling him, "Fight, do not give up, please fight!" Jose's commanding officer was at a corner of the room with tears in his eyes, looking at me as if he were asking, "Please tell God to save him!" He then would turn to the doctors as saying, "Fight for him please save him, save my Marine!" Another officer entered the room, looked carefully to the doctors and then turned to me asking me with the gesture of his hands to pray. Then, he turned to Jose's officer and greeted him as if giving his condolences.

Please Lord, save him! I prayed with all my strength while the doctors tried frantically to save his life. "He has no more pulse!" one doctor shouted, while a female doctor with her hands inside Jose's chest caressed his heart trying to revive him. After 45 minutes of massaging the heart and electrical shocks, the doctor declared him dead.

In my mind, I was praying Lord, do not allow Jose's mother to receive him without life. Looking at Jose on the stretcher, I only saw half of his body. How would his life be if he would have survived without legs and only part of his hands? I wonder if God instead of answering my prayer answered Jose's prayer. Maybe Jose was telling God, please take me with you, do not leave me here this way. I don not know; the only thing I know is that Jose will not suffer anymore.

I still hear Jose's voice when he would tell me, "Bless me, Father... Please, Father, bless me... I always tell my mom that you bless me, and she gets very happy..... My mother told me to thank you for your blessing." What will go through Jose's mother's mind? Will she be angry at God? Will she hate the Marine Corps that her son loved so much?

I wish I could tell her: "Senora, I was with your son on his last moments." My hope is that she will find some comfort in the knowledge that her son had a priest by his side in his last moments.

Jose's officer asked for my name to tell his mother that I prayer for Jose, and that he received the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. I would love to look at her eyes, and let her know that I was with her son on her behalf. I would like to embrace her, and tell her that her son asked for my blessing every time he could come to Mass.

I thank God for the gift of my priesthood and to my Cardinal who allowed me to come and serve as a chaplain. I am a priest not only to celebrate Holy Mass, but also to live it. The gift of my priesthood allows me to bless and bring peace to my muchachos and muchachas, that's the way I see them as my young kids, in the midst of this war.

Please, ask God that I may never get tired of blessing those who ask and wherever they ask me. Jose would ask me to bless him in the Chapel, or while I was walking to my "Humvee" (my transportation), which would bring me to my base or where ever he would see me.

"Father would you bless me?" Who will be the next priest to hear these words? Will our young men and women in the military services have priests to come to and ask for a blessing, or to come for confession, or will they have the opportunity to attend Mass? I pray that young men and women in the military will get the spiritual guidance they need. The only way this will be possible is if more men respond to God's call to the priesthood. When the Lord asks, "Whom shall I send?" many will say "Here I am, Lord!"

Fr. Jose Bautista-Rojas, LT, CHC, USN is currently serving as a US military chaplain in Iraq. A native of Guadalajara, Mexico, he was ordained for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1999, and has previously served at various parishes including St. Elizabeth Church in Van Nuys, CA.

"Priest gravely wounded in Iraq in 2004 dies"

Father Tim with some of the troops he ministered to in Iraq. (Provided by his family)

From the Star Tribune

Five years after being gravely wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the Rev. Tim Vakoc, a well-known and much-loved Roman Catholic priest from Minnesota, has died.

By CHAO XIONG

Five years after being gravely wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the Rev. Tim Vakoc, a well-known and much-loved Roman Catholic priest from Minnesota, has died, his family said Sunday.

Vakoc, 49, who most recently had been living at St. Therese Care Center in New Hope, died about 8 p.m. Saturday after being taken to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, said Barb Rode, president and CEO of St. Therese.

"Certainly, our thoughts and prayers are with the family right now," Rode said. "We are doing an investigation to make sure we have all the answers."

Vakoc died surrounded by family and friends, according to an entry on his CaringBridge website.

"A man of peace, he chose to endure the horror of war in order to bring the peace of Christ to America's fighting men and women," Archbishop John Nienstedt wrote in a prepared statement. "He has been an inspiration to us all, and we will miss him."

Father Tim, as he was known, was the first military chaplain grievously wounded in the Iraq war. He was injured by a roadside bomb as he was returning from celebrating mass with troops on May 29, 2004, the day before the 12th anniversary of his ordination as a priest.

The blast cost him an eye and severely damaged his brain. He was hospitalized at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and transferred to the Minneapolis Veterans Administration Medical Center in October 2004.

After numerous surgeries and life-threatening infections, he slowly started to recognize friends and family, and to communicate with a squeeze of the hand or a slight smile.

For more than two years, he was in what doctors called a "minimally responsive state." Then, in the fall of 2006, he spoke for the first time in 2 1/2 years, raising hopes of recovery.

'Where angels fear to tread'

The Rev. Bob Schwartz, pastor at Our Lady of Grace in Edina and a longtime friend of Vakoc, said he would mime words with his lips. During a visit Schwartz paid him three months ago, Vakoc offered to give him a blessing. Later that day, he struggled but succeeded in maneuvering his motorized wheelchair down a hall and into an elevator to get to his therapy session, bumping against the wall the entire way because he lacked good motion control in his hands, Schwartz said.

"My sense of Tim is that if he was asked to walk across a landmine for somebody, he'd do it," said Schwartz, who served as priest at St. John Neumann Church in Eagan while Vakoc was associate pastor there. "He'd go where angels fear to tread."

Tens of thousands of people around the world followed Vakoc's story through his CaringBridge website. He had dozens of regular visitors, many of whom came to pray with him.

Teri Heyer of St. Paul visited him every other Sunday for three years, reading the newspaper to him. He communicated primarily with a "yes," "no," nod or facial expressions, she said.

"He was very aware of his surroundings," she said, adding that he once flashed a raised eyebrow at a story she recounted.

Ordained 17 years ago

When she last saw him a few weeks ago, he was doing well, she said.

Patricia Vacik of Colorado Springs, Colo., visited him three times, compelled by the friendship her family forged with him when he was their pastor at Fort Carson, Colo., in the 1990s.

"He use to take the babies and walk the babies on his shoulders during mass," she said. "He said the babies were so close to heaven [that] they really were still in touch with God. He was just so special."

Vakoc celebrated the 17th anniversary of his ordination on June 10 of this year, according to his CaringBridge site.

Vakoc, the youngest of three children of Phyllis and Henry Vakoc, grew up in Robbinsdale and entered St. Paul Seminary in 1987. He served as a parish priest in St. Anthony and Eagan before becoming an Army chaplain in 1996, and served extended tours of duty in Germany and Bosnia.

He shipped out to Iraq shortly before his 44th birthday. There, he was promoted to major and traveled to danger zones to pray with his fellow soldiers. He was returning to base from one of those trips when the roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee.

Family members declined to comment Sunday.

"Priest a wartime legend"

From The Windsor Star
By Marty Gervais

Rev. Mike Dalton celebrates mass with Canadian troops in Europe during the Second World War. Dalton, who died Monday at 106, used his army Jeep as an altar.

Photograph by: File photo, The Windsor Star

He was a soldier to the end. His threadbare army tunic hung on the wall, and his room was filled with religious icons, rosaries and holy pictures.

And when you spoke to him, his words were about the men he knew on the battlefields of France when he rigged up a makeshift altar on the hood of his jeep and said mass for them.

The photos from the Second World War show these anxious men kneeling, their heads bowed, silent in the muddy fields just hours before they were sent into battle.

And when age finally wore him down -- long after the war and years of serving parishes all over the London diocese including Windsor, Woodslee and Kingsville -- this old priest told me it wouldn't stop him from saying mass in his bed at the nursing home.

It would never stop him from being a priest. And there was no way he would ever lose his faith in his religion or people.

I'm speaking about an old friend, Rev. Mike Dalton, who passed away Monday afternoon at Sacred Heart Nursing Home in Courtland, Ont. He was 106, a month shy of his 107th birthday.

This son of a Goderich farmer is the most decorated padre who ever served in the Canadian Army. He marched at the front lines with his fellow soldiers, often carrying their weapons when they tired of battle.

Besides the Military Cross for bravery, Father Dalton was the first Catholic priest to receive the Member of the British Empire. The day King George VI pinned the decoration on his tunic at Buckingham Palace, he dug deep into his pockets and handed the monarch a Catholic religious medal.

When I met Father Dalton in the mid-1990s, this legendary padre with the Essex Scottish, who landed at Normandy in 1944, complained of sitting in a wheelchair. His legs had given out on him. He prayed for God to give him back his strength, so he could stand up again and say mass.

TWINKLE IN HIS EYES

Deep down, he knew better. He told me so.

The day I met him, Father Dalton wore the Roman collar, and had a twinkle in those slate-grey eyes and a wit and a humour that bubbled out in the stories he spun for me. He loved to talk. He loved people. He loved life. He loved God. He loved being a soldier. He loved being a priest.

If there was anything he didn't like, it was losing those fathers and sons to war. He had sensed their inner fears. It didn't matter if the orders were to stay clear of the front lines -- he listened instead to his own heart, and drove his jeep to the brink of battle. And he would sit there in the open jeep -- its windshield festooned with flowers -- and hear the laboured, disturbed confessions of terrified soldiers.

Or sometimes he would join a soldier on a road to a battle and try to ease their woes and lift their spirits.

Somehow Father Dalton believed he was invincible. He said he feared nothing. He figured he had a purpose, a reason to be. He felt lucky. He felt destined and blessed for some higher purpose. How else, he asked, do you explain how twice his truck was hit with shrapnel, and men died all around him?

"I didn't have a scratch. I couldn't even get a cold," he said.

And sometimes he was so lost in the reverie of saying mass on the hood of his jeep that he would suddenly turn to give a blessing, "and there was no one there ... I was all alone. The soldiers had jumped for cover, and shrapnel was flying everywhere. I hadn't heard a thing."

Rev. Matthew George, a longtime friend of Father Dalton, in hearing of his death, said the biggest regret of this priest's life was discovering too late the botched Dieppe invasion. "He had been at a chaplain's meeting and when he found out, he wanted to be put ashore, but they wouldn't let him.

"He cared about those men -- and never forgot them," said George.

It reminded me of what Dalton told me years ago when I asked why he joined the army. He said that when he served at St. Alphonsus in downtown Windsor, he realized those same kids who had made their First Communion in that church were now running off to war.

"I had to go with them," he said.

Now with his passing, I'm speculating the old padre is catching up to them, once again.

"Military padres a rare breed"

From Canada.com
By Matthew Fisher

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Padre Bastien Leclerc is one of the rarest of the rare. He is a Roman Catholic priest and a cleric in the Canadian Forces.

Just as the Catholic Church is having a devil of a time finding priests for its parishes across Canada, it has become more and more difficult for the military to find priests to fill billets at bases in Canada and overseas.

Forty of the 84 Roman Catholic positions in the forces are now filled by lay pastoral associates. Four more are lay deacons, meaning that the 40 priests still in uniform have become a minority within their own chaplaincy.

"It is very hard for a bishop to give up a priest but it is even worse if the priest is young and I was only 34 when I joined the military,” said Father Leclerc, whose rank is major and is Task Force Afghanistan’s senior chaplain.

"There is such a shortage of priests in Canada that some have two or three parishes and spend all their time running from masses to baptisms to marriages. I admire the priests who can do that, but that was not me."

A priest who was a padre suggested to Leclerc, who was not keen on parish life but enjoyed his work at the time with street kids in Quebec, that joining the military might be his calling.

"I took spiritual direction and prayed and signed on the dotted line," he said, pausing for a moment as a pair of fighter jets screamed past his window. "My bishop reluctantly agreed. Ten years later he can see how much happier I am."

Nevertheless Leclerc, unlike some other military priests, remains on loan to the forces, and could be called back to Quebec at any time.

"The bishop still has that option but I think he knows that he would only get half a priest back," Leclerc said with a boisterous laugh.

Leclerc’s home base is Edmonton. He has done a tour of duty in Bosnia and is now near the front end of 9 months in the heat and dust of southern Afghanistan.

Part of his duties at the Kandahar Airfield include celebrating a mass every Saturday night for a congregation that includes not just Canadians, but soldiers from many other NATO countries and devout Filipino civilian workers who provide music for the service. Leclerc also often fills in for an American padre at a mass on Sundays.

Like all padres, Leclerc went through boot camp — minus weapons training — when he joined the military. The deployment to Afghanistan was preceded by months of pre-mission training at Wainwright, Alta.

During exercises there that simulated serious casualty situations "we made training prayers," Leclerc, explaining with another big laugh that "I had to begin those prayers by stating, ‘I am faking a prayer.’

"It is different work here than in Canada. The guys are younger and we deal a lot with family issues. Some will leave a newborn and come back to a walking kid who looks at them and wonders, ‘Who the heck is that guy?’”

There is also the immense challenge of helping soldiers to deal with grief.

"There is only so much that a man can take sometimes," he said. "When they lose a friend, and sometimes more than one, they sometimes ask questions about what we are doing here."

Leclerc was philosophical about the inexorable trend toward more Roman Catholic lay ministers in the military.

"The lay ministers bring a lot of different ways of doing things, of thinking and of reflecting, and there is a real richness to that," he said.

The future of the Catholic ministry within the military was already evident in how its representatives have been divided into three groups, with priests, deacons and pastoral associates.

"A lot of our future Catholic chaplains will be permanent deacons." Leclerc said. "These are usually married people who have been pastoral associates. They are not allowed to say mass but they can do weddings and baptisms."

Leclerc considers himself to be doubly blessed to be a padre and to have been given the "experience of a lifetime" by being posted to Afghanistan.

"To be here or anywhere in the world with our soldiers is a privilege," he said. "Some people, especially in Quebec, have questioned this mission. But it is something special to be part of a team that is trying to improve the quality of life here."

"The Diaconate and the Military Archdiocese"

This is a follow up to my previous post HERE. Not sure why I didn't think to check the Military Archdiocese website for information, but Charivari Rob did, and he put a link to the appropriate page from their website in the combox. I post the webpage in its entirety below..








From the Military Archdiocese website:

"The Diaconate and the Military Archdiocese"

This statement is intended to reply in a general and informal way to those who have requested information about the status of Catholic deacons wishing to be of service to the Archdiocese for the Military Services.

The present situation

The Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS) does not provide a training and education program for deacons nor does it fund such a program. With few exceptions, all training and education is carried out under the auspices of a civilian (arch)diocese in the United States. It should be noted, however, that not all (arch)dioceses conduct such programs. Military members wishing to learn more about the diaconate should contact the nearest (arch)diocese in the U.S. to inquire about its diaconate formation program.

There are two ways in which deacons presently serve the AMS: (1) on active duty in uniform or (2) in a civilian capacity. Deacons on active duty function on a full-time basis in their primary military occupational specialty while providing support to a local military Catholic priest-chaplain as deacon on a part-time basis.

No deacons are ordained for service to the Archdiocese for the Military Services. A man is ordained a deacon for service to a specific (arch)diocese, even though he may be on active duty in the military or supporting the military in a civilian capacity. The presumption is, in each case, that a deacon on active duty in the military will report to the (arch)diocese for which he is ordained upon completion of his military duty unless the local Ordinary determines or permits otherwise.

Every deacon who wishes to minister within the Military Archdiocese— whether on a U.S. military installation or at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center, must first receive written permission from his Ordinary before applying to the Military Archbishop for faculties. Additionally, his ministry must be specifically requested by the senior priest-chaplain of that installation who, in turn, will act as the deacon's supervisor.

The duties carried out by deacons in the Military Archdiocese are essentially the same as those performed in civilian parishes. The deacon may be authorized to preach, carry the Blessed Sacrament to the sick at home or in hospitals, distribute Holy Communion during Mass or at other times; baptize, witness marriages, provide religious instructions, prepare individuals and couples for marriage, coordinate or direct programs for religious education and engage in various other activities under the supervision of the senior Catholic priest-chaplain.

Some of his ecclesiastical responsibilities may parallel, complement or be complemented by the work of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion (EMHCs), lay leaders, lectors, Directors of Religious Education and others.

The deacon in military uniform ordinarily will not be financially remunerated for his work. A deacon serving the military community as a civilian may receive financial remuneration, but this would be an arrangement made by him through military or VA channels.

Finally, in answer to questions concerning deacons serving as "chaplains" in the AMS, only ordained Catholic priests may minister with the title "chaplain" since they enjoy the faculties proper to the priesthood and, therefore, can celebrate Mass and provide the faithful with all the sacraments.

_____

Who am I to argue with the policy of the Military Archdiocese? I also took the time to look at Canon Law with regard to "Chaplains". In reading Canons 564-571, it is clear, and I stand corrected, that from a Roman Catholic Church perspective, Chaplains must be Priests.

Can. 564 A Chaplain is a priest to whom is entrusted in a stable manner the pastoral care, at least in part, of some community or particular group of Christian faithful, which is to be excercised according to the norm of universal and particular law.

Can. 566 - 1. A chaplain must be provided with all the faculties which proper pastoral care requires. In addition to those which are granted by particular law or special delegation, a chaplain possesses by virtue of office the faculty of hearing the confessions of the faithful entrusted to his care, of preaching the word of God to them, of administering Viaticum and the annointing of the sick, and of conferring the sacrament of confirmation on those who are in danger of death.

The two canons above pretty much eliminate the possibility of Permanent Deacon "Chaplains" at least from a Catholic standpoint. However, it is still hard to believe that a Permanent Deacon, particularly one who may have spent a number of years, if not his entire career, in the military could not serve in some full time capacity to help eliviate the severe shortage of Catholic "Chaplains" in our armed forces. These men would have a unique ability to relate to the men they were serving. And would it not be in the tradition of the diaconate for these men to serve those who are not currently being served? I have heard countless stories of military men and women months without seeing a Priest. Inevitably many of them end up going to protestant church services. Imagine the nominal Catholic that decides he really needs God in his life. Looking for someone to talk to he goes to the protestant chaplain, because there is no Catholic chaplain. I'm sure you can play out the rest of the scenario.

I am certainly not suggesting that Permanent Deacons replace Priests as chaplains. I am suggesting that Deacons might be able to handle many elements of ministry that they can do in order to free up our priest chaplains to do what only they can do - hear confession, celebrate Mass, annoint the sick and confirm.

Permanent Deacon Military Chaplains?

Today's military is in dire need of chaplains. Our U.S. Catholic military men and women overseas can go months without the sacraments and the presence of Catholic chaplains. Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion were banned by Archbishop O'Brien due to abuses of "Communion Services." In many cases those seeking some kind of spiritual engagement seek out protestant ministers. Yet it is my understanding (corerect me if I am wrong) that the Archdiocese of the Military - or the Department of Defense does not allow Permanent Deacons to serve as chaplains. Based on at least one conversation I have had with a high ranking military chaplain at the Pentagon, I believe it is the DOD that does not allow it. Apparently they only want Priest Chaplains. I could be wrong, I may have misunderstood. Obviously it would be wonderful to have a plethera of Catholic Priests serving as Chaplains, but wouldn't it at least be better to have Permanent Deacons as Catholic Chaplains than to have Catholics seeking spiritual direction from protestant chaplains?

I found the article below interesting - apparently the Canadian military does allow Permanent Deacon Chaplains...

From the Barrier Examiner

KANDAHAR — In an environment where death and brutality is inevitably part of the process, faith and religion are too.

"We're that light in the darkness, that calm in the storm," said Maj. Michel Dion, a battle group padre stationed at Kandahar Air Field, where Canadians and troops from other coalition countries are based as part of the mission to rid the Taliban.

There are currently five chaplains providing faith and religion-based services to Canadians on this base that is home to more than 10,000 military personnel. The services are primarily intended for Canadians, but multinational outreach is offered as well.

"Our primary mission is to support the mission here by providing spiritual, religious and ethical support for members," said Dion, a permanent Roman Catholic deacon who has been stationed here for four months. "We provide a ministry of presence." (Photo at left shows Deacon Michel Dion in uniform on the right)

Regular visits to military units, prayer seminars, including religious support for the wounded, sick and dead are available to the troops here, and many take up the offer.

"Our services are utilized quite a lot, in actuality, as Canadians have become more and more involved (in the mission)," Dion said. "It's challenging to have to interpret what's going on out there. And situations can be very traumatic for some. We work with helping members cope and get through traumatic events. We're a voice for those who feel voiceless."

Dion, who has served in the military for 20 years — 10 in his current capacity — is one of a select few here who don't carry a weapon.

"Being able to walk around Afghanistan without a weapon, that's what everyone here is trying to accomplish," he said.

Update: Click HERE to see my follow-up post to this one.

Chaplain, Bronze Star winner, heads to West Point

From Grand Forks Herald.com
By Stephen J. Lee

The North Dakota Catholic priest, who won a Bronze Star as a chaplain in Iraq and who resigned this year from parish ministry to go back to the war, reported Wednesday for duty as chaplain at West Point, the Army’s elite academy in New York.

Monsignor Brian Donahue was set to return to Iraq with a Texas National Guard unit this fall, a unit he had served with in 2005 when he earned the Bronze Star.

But Army authorities decided recently to send him to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Meanwhile, his clothing, chaplain supplies and personal effects are on a ship headed to Iraq, a news release from the Catholic Diocese of Fargo said.

Donahue already had been stationed in Texas with the 3-133rd Field Artillery Unit this summer when he learned the Army was assigning him to West Point.

He was saddened he wouldn’t remain with the troops he got to know well, Donahue said in the news release.

“I pray for them every day.”

Donahue, a former Grand Forks priest, grew up in Fargo, and as a teenager kept track of three of his brothers serving in combat in the Vietnam War.

He graduated from South High School in 1973 and after a stint as a television cameraman, studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1983.

He retired last year as a major after 20 years as a chaplain with the North Dakota National Guard. He also recently became a monsignor, a rank of honor among priests, and was serving as vicar general of the Fargo diocese, a key lieutenant of Bishop Samuel Aquila.

Aquila gave him permission to follow his latest calling, to serve full time as a military chaplain with troops in harm’s way in Iraq. He had served on active duty during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and in 2005 in Iraq. During the past year as a parish priest near Fargo, Donahue said he felt called to go back to Iraq, realizing his heart “has never left the military,” he told his parishioners last spring.

But this summer in Texas, Donahue said it became clear the complications of getting him unretired and back into the correct channels to head to Iraq with the Texas Guard unit would have taken too long and the unit would be returning by the time he got over there.

“At that point, I had to make a decision. And realizing that the very reason I was in Texas was slipping out of my hands, we made a decision to just start the process for (joining) the active Army.”

So, his assignment was changed to West Point, where he’s on temporary active duty until his transition back into the regular Army is completed.

“When they first told me, I was in shock. It is quite an honor to be assigned to West Point. I am really looking forward to getting settled and getting to work.”

He arrived at West Point on Wednesday morning and had a full day of duties, including waiting for his clothes, chaplain supplies and personal belongings to be returned. It will take several months to get them back, so he had to go out and buy stuff, he said.

For now, he’s temporarily in the Army Reserves, on a one-year assignment to West Point, on active duty starting today.

He will be working with a regiment of cadets, one of many chaplains of all denominations at West Point, he said.

Today, Donahue will say Mass in the Catholic chapel on campus.

Before he left Fargo for West Point this month, he looked up all the cadets from North Dakota.

“There are about 10,” he said. “I e-mailed all of them and told them I was coming.”

One is the son of a fellow chaplain of Donahue, the Rev. John Flowers, a Baptist pastor and chaplain with the North Dakota Air National Guard in Fargo.

“His son is in his final year here, so I will get to meet him,” Donahue said Wednesday evening by telephone from West Point.

Being at the hallowed site that traces its history to the American Revolution and where generals such as Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, “Black Jack” Pershing and Douglas MacArthur started out as cadets, is a kick, Donahue said.

“It’s amazing. I was looking out over the grounds today and it seems like a dream.”

"Face of Defense: Chaplain’s Journey Leads to Meeting Pope"

From the Military Family Network

By Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Meghan McNabb - Special to American Forces Press Service
2008-05-02

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. , May 1, 2008 –

At just 16 years old, Jose A. Bautista-Rojas left his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico, for Los Angeles in hopes of creating a better life for himself and the parents he left behind.

At the time, he had no idea his journey would lead him into the priesthood, the military or the opportunity to shake the pope’s hand.

The road from Guadalajara was not short, and life in Los Angeles was not easy, Bautista said. Living with friends, working all day and attending English-as-a-second-language classes at Evans Community Adult School at night, Bautista focused on the chance to bring his family to the United States.

“There wasn’t much time for fun,” Bautista said. “I worked carpentry from 7:30 to 3:30; from 5 to 7, I worked at a car wash; and from 7:30 to 9, I went to ESL classes.”

After four years, Bautista’s family was able to join him, and he was able to turn his attention to new goals.

Because he worked so much, Bautista hadn’t focused on graduating from high school until he decided to enter the priesthood, a journey that would take 11 years to complete.

Bautista started attending church with a girl he liked, but ended up finding much more.

“I had stopped going to church,” Bautista said. “I had to fight off the pressure and temptations that come to young men. I wasn’t always perfect, but I had to get back on track. I enjoyed church and the sermons, and before I knew it, I was getting involved.”

Bautista’s interest coincided with a new initiative by then-Archbishop of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Michael Mahoney. The cardinal established Casa Reina de Los Angeles, or House of our Lady Queen of Angels, as a place for young men who wanted to enter the priesthood but either didn’t have their high school diploma or needed to perfect their English.

Bautista studied hard for two years to earn his high school diploma and perfect his English. He spent a year studying for college-level classes, four years earning his college degree, and four years earning his divinity master’s degree.

On June 5, 1999, Bautista was ordained a priest and was assigned to St. Elizabeth of Hungary parish in Van Nuys, Calif. In 2001, Bautista was assigned to his next church, St. John of God in Norwalk, Calif. Two of his parishioners, a Marine and soldier, died in Iraq.

At their memorial service, busloads of Marines came from Camp Pendleton, Calif., to attend. Some of them told Bautista how they didn’t always have access to attend Mass when they were deployed in Iraq.

“I’m saying Mass, and I look up and thought of them serving without Mass,” Bautista said. “I thought to myself, ‘I need to put my words into action.’ I would always say, ‘Let’s pray for those serving,’ but it was time to act.”

Bautista received an endorsement from the Los Angeles archdiocese and was released to the Archdiocese for the Military. In January 2006, he entered the Chaplain Corps with the Navy.

Then a lieutenant, Bautista served as the Combat Logistics Regiment 27, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, chaplain for 13 months in Iraq’s Anbar province. Bautista was the only priest stationed at his unit’s base at Taqaddum, but said what mattered most was finally being able to minister to those he had prayed so long for.

“One of the most memorable times in Iraq was when a sergeant was going into surgery,” Bautista recalled. “He asked me to hold his hand until he went under, and I knew this is what ministry is about.”

Bautista said he doesn’t consider the priesthood a job, but rather, his vocation and what he is dedicated to.

“A job is something you are hired to do,” Bautista explained. “A vocation is love for God and what you’ve been called to do.”

Bautista said Marines and sailors can tell when a chaplain is acting only as an officer and isn’t ministering.

“You have to be an officer as well as a chaplain,” Bautista said. “But it’d be sad if they only recognize you as an officer. A ship that doesn’t float isn’t living up to what it’s supposed to be, just as a minister that doesn’t minister isn’t living up to their potential. You have the title, but you’re not living up to it. Marines can see through that.”

While ministering in Iraq, Bautista received an early invitation from the military archdiocese to attend Mass during Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit to the United States. Amid shouts of “Viva la Papa,” Bautista watched as the pope arrived at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

“It was my oasis,” Bautista said. “It was nice to go from the desert to a sea of clergy, faithful people and peace.”

The next day, the chaplain attended the pope’s Mass at Nationals Park in Washington and heard the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics talk about being a witness of faith.

“[The pope] said those of hope must live different lives,” Bautista said. “We must point the way for others. Being seen as different is how people will recognize you as a person of faith.”

After the pope’s historical Mass, Bautista took meeting the pope into his own hands. He walked up past the security lines as the pope was walking off the stage. With outstretched arms, the pope grabbed his hand and shook it.

“I felt like a teenage kid. I was giggling and so emotional,” Bautista said. “The effect this man has on people is unreal.”

The pope reached out to Bautista not only physically, but also spiritually, the chaplain said, and even gave a message in Bautista’s native tongue. He said, “Paz a ustedes,” or “Peace be with you.”

“What made it so emotional was that he was reaching out to you,” Bautista said. “I felt like he was speaking directly to me, like he was reaching out to me personally.”

Bautista said it was a beautiful gift to meet the pope and be surrounded by clergy.

Although Bautista has appreciated every minute of his time as a chaplain, he said he eventually will be called back to serve in Los Angeles. He said he wants Marines and sailors never to think their dreams are too high or far away.

“I want them to know that every step they take, even the littlest step, is one step closer,” Bautista explained. “I am an immigrant from Mexico who didn’t speak English, and I never thought I’d become an officer in the Navy.”

(Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Meghan McNabb serves with 2nd Marine Logistics Group.)

"Priest heeds call to Iraq"

By REX W. HUPPKE
McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
CHICAGO - The Rev. Matt Foley has stood by the ornate oak altar of his church and made the sign of the cross over dozens of young soldiers bound for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Each time, his blessing has echoed through the Little Village sanctuary and back to a long-ago promise unfulfilled.

In the early 1980s, Foley faced diverging paths: Follow his brother into the Army, or follow his faith into the priesthood. Reluctantly, he felt pulled to the church.

But he told his brother, Mike, that he would join him in the service if war ever came.

The United States invaded Iraq in 1991. Mike commanded a company of Bradley Fighting Vehicles as they stormed across the desert. Matt was two years out of the seminary, sworn to the church, tied to his priestly duties at a North Lawndale parish.

There was no resentment, but in the decade that followed, the Irish Catholic priest could never shake the feeling he had let his brother down.

In 2000, Matt took over St. Agnes of Bohemia Catholic Church, becoming a dynamic and beloved figure known across Little Village as ‘‘Padre Mateo.’’

He marched with parishioners, protesting the neighborhood’s lack of parks. He boldly scolded the community for allowing gang violence to claim young lives.

When a man tried to break into the church’s donation box, the priest chased him down, tackled him and held him until police arrived.

But even as the parish flourished, Foley, 45, began to feel tugged toward a change, the same sensation he had when God pulled him into the priesthood. It was something in the worried eyes of the young men and women who sought his blessing before going to war.

‘‘I keep sending these people, and now I feel like it’s my turn to go,’’ said Foley, his head resting against the wall of a dimly lit prayer room a day before he was sworn in to the Army. ‘‘I just feel like it’s my turn to go. You can’t just keep blessing people.’’

On Feb. 27, by the church’s altar, Foley recited an oath to his brother, an Iraq veteran twice over.

‘‘I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,’’ said Matt Foley, standing rigid, right hand raised, beside the family of a Little Village soldier serving in Iraq.

It was the culmination of more than a year of prayer and meditation. Foley had searched his soul, thought about the strong parish he had built and the people he would leave behind.

‘‘When you bury people’s children or their relatives, you’re really connected to them on a very high level,’’ he said. ‘‘I feel like I’m not going to be with these people who will forever be mourning their losses.’’

He also had to seek approval from the archdiocese of Chicago - to which he had vowed obedience - at a time when the church faces a shortage of priests.

The Rev. Claudio Diaz Jr., director of Hispanic ministries for the archdiocese, said Cardinal Francis George let Foley go because he recognized the dearth of Catholic priests in Iraq and believed Foley’s calling was sincere.

‘‘That’s part of who we are as priests,’’ Diaz said. ‘‘We remind the people of God to be attentive of God’s will in their lives. Simultaneously, as priests, we have to be attentive to the voice of God in terms of our ministry and service to his people.’’

Foley will leave in June, bound for military chaplain training in South Carolina. He has asked the Army to send him to Iraq as soon as possible, and Army officials say his wish will certainly be granted.

During his swearing-in ceremony, the priest read a fitting Gospel passage: ‘‘When you were young, you walked where you wanted to walk. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will carry you where you do not want to go.’’

Up through college, Foley was a troublemaker, a partyer. As a political science major at Marquette University, he played rugby with fellow student and soon-to-be-famous comedian Chris Farley, known for his life of excess. Farley, who died in 1997, named one of his most revered ‘‘Saturday Night Live’’ characters, a bumbling motivational speaker, after Foley.

‘‘I was interested in law and drinking beer,’’ Foley said.

Yet he couldn’t escape a pull he had felt since his high school days in Libertyville, the sense that God was calling him. Maybe it came from memories of his Uncle Jerome, an Army chaplain who served two tours in Vietnam. Foley still recalls 1970s nights spent by the television, watching the end of the network newscast as names of the day’s soldiers killed in action scrolled down the screen, praying his uncle was safe.

By his junior year at Marquette, in 1983, Foley reached his crossroads. His brother, Mike, a senior and already enlisted, was sure Foley would become an Army man.

‘‘My roommate and I both became infantry officers,’’ Mike Foley said. ‘‘And Matt enjoyed being around us all the time. We’d tell him about what we were doing. I think Matt always liked that adventure, that leadership kind of thing.’’

But Matt couldn’t resist the spiritual pressure bearing down on him. He surprised everyone he knew by entering the seminary in Chicago.

‘‘I surrendered,’’ Foley said. ‘‘I let somebody else control me. I let my God guide me.’’

He finished the seminary in 1989 and became an associate pastor at St. Agatha in North Lawndale, a white priest in a nearly all-black community.

In 1994, barely able to speak a word of Spanish, he moved to a parish in Quechultenango, Mexico.

Six years later he returned to Chicago and took control of St. Agnes, a spiritual anchor in a culturally rich neighborhood divided by rival Latino gangs, struggling with issues of poverty and immigration.

Once again, Foley was a stranger relying on divine direction.

‘‘We started to notice a lot of things changing right away,’’ said Dolores Castaneda, a parishioner and activist. ‘‘He fixed the church. He fixed the school. He fought for us to have better places for the children to go. He joined marches, he got angry, he protested.’’

Quickly - more quickly then anyone could expect - he was embraced. They liked him because he admitted his own sins and warned them of theirs. He spoke of how he enjoyed hearing babies cry during Mass because they sounded full of life.

Since he arrived in 2000, Foley has buried nearly 30 members of the feuding Latin Kings and the Two Sixers street gangs. He never tried to hide his frustration.

‘‘He’d tell us that we don’t have compassion, we’re not really focused on God,’’ Castaneda said. ‘‘If you’re focused on God, you’re not killing your brother, you’re not killing your neighbor.’’

But what few knew about Padre Mateo was that his time in Little Village began expiring as soon as he felt comfort setting in. He said it’s the nature of his relationship with God, a connection that, in order to work, must routinely be renewed.

‘‘I’m so restless with my God,’’ Foley said. ‘‘When I get stripped of this place, which has been my life, my home, my family, I’m going to be brought to a place where I’m not going to know anyone. I’ll be a vessel that God’s going to use.’’

And he’ll fulfill a promise unkept. When Foley told his brother, now a reservist based in Georgia, that he was signing up, the response was simple.

‘‘About time,’’ Mike Foley said.

He was joking, but the priest knew it was time to move on. He felt the flutters of fear in his gut, worried he could lose his zeal, as though he still had to run to stay ahead of the college kid who never thought he would be a priest in the first place.

So Foley will stay with his parish until June, serving more than 6,000 people who attend Mass each Sunday and look to him for help.

Then he’ll pack his bags and let himself again be carried somewhere he doesn’t want to go, but needs to be.