OUR MISSION
The Archdiocese for the Military Services, U.S.A., is the diocese through which the Roman Catholic Church assures that those dedicated to defending our country have immediate access to spiritual and pastoral services and support. The Archdiocese serves without territorial boundaries and is present throughout the free world.

BECOMING AN ARCHDIOCESE

In November of 1939, Pope Pius XII created the military vicariate and designated Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, to be his military vicar in the United States. In December of that year, Pope Pius XII appointed Father John O’Hara, President of the University of Notre Dame, as military delegate. At that time there were approximately a quarter million Americans serving in the military, of which fifty-thousand were Catholic.  The Military Vicariate existed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of New York.

To better serve the needs of our men and women in uniform, Pope John Paul II created the Archdiocese for the Military Services U.S. and on March 25, 1985 appointed John Joseph T. Ryan as the Archdiocese’s first Archbishop.  The Archdiocese was incorporated under the secular laws of the State of Maryland on the 22nd of June, 1993.     

Today, the Archdiocese serves over 1.4 million Roman Catholic men and women.  This includes 375,000 in uniform and over 900,000 family members.  The Archdiocese also ministers to the 300,000 plus Catholics who are in the Reserve, Coast Guard, serving in Government service overseas and those in Veterans Administration hospitals. These men and women are ministered to by over 1,000 priests supported by members of the Catholic laity.

The Archdiocese for the Military Services does not ordain priests and has no seminary of its own. Therefore, it does not incardinate men into the Archdiocese for the Military Service to serve as military chaplains.  Rather, the Archdiocese relies on the generosity of diocesan bishops and religious superiors to lend priests for service within the military chaplaincy.   Chaplains serve for a term of years or until they are re-called by their superior; after which they return to their home diocese or religious community.

HISTORY OF CHAPLAINCY

Old Testament Times
We know that priests accompanied leaders and their armies into battle from the first days of human society. Chapter XX of the Book of Deuteronomy directs a specially appointed Hebrew priest to accompany the army and address the troops on the eve of battle. What was rue for the Hebrews was also true for the pagan nations. Their priests would search ritually for omens of military success and offer sacrifices before and after battle.

Early Christianity
We see no signs of Christian chaplains in the first centuries since even outside of persecution times, the Church was barely tolerated by pagan Rome. However, the New Testament accepted the legitimacy of the military profession. John the Baptist counsels the Roman soldier on how to conduct himself in his profession; Paul uses military imagery constantly; Christ praises the Roman Centurion; and Peter readily baptizes the Centurion Cornelius. The Acts of the Martyrs lists a goodly number of Christian soldiers who died for the Faith.

None the less, military life became a problem for the Christian as the excesses of emperor-worship led into the age of persecution, even though the toleration of Christians in Roman society would differ from emperor to emperor, and from province to province. Under such historical circumstances, it appears that no Christian priests cared exclusively for soldiers in those first centuries. Christian soldiers had to seek out the local Christian community for religious support.

The Christian Empire
With religious freedom established by the Emperor Constantine in the Edict of Milan (313 A.D.), the Church took an active role in the life of the State. The historian Eusebius states that Constantine took priests with him in his military campaigns.  It is unclear as to how organized the spiritual care of the troops was. In Arian times, the clergy was regularly incorporated into the military.

Legend has it that the name "chaplain" derives from the word for cape or "capella", and dates from the time of St. Martin of Tours, the Roman soldier of the 4th Century, who became, after his military service,  a monk, then a bishop, and eventually a patron saint of France. The military cloak which he cut in half to share with a beggar was treasured as a relic and carried into battle by the Frankish army. A priest was entrusted with the cloak and was called keeper of the cape of "cappellanus" or chaplain.

The Middle Ages
During this period there were struggles between the Church and state over lines of authority and the immunity of the clergy from military service and from civil law jurisdiction. As feudalism developed, bishops and abbots became land-owners and, as such, vassals within the feudal system. This occasionally involved the rendering of military service. In the Dark Ages we find ecclesiastical lords leading their troops into camp and note the ambiguous role of the soldier priest who is both combatant and chaplain.

Documents attributed to Charlemagne (803 A.D.) talk of clergy assigned to the army for the spiritual needs of the soldiers with the double duty of caring for the wounded and of administering the sacraments. Such chaplaincy was usually temporary since the feudal system did not call for standing armies. Everyone in feudal society was in the personal service of some higher lord. When danger arose and wars began, the lord called on his vassals and his priests to serve for the duration of the need.

The Crusades
The Crusades, one of the greatest military efforts in history, continued for almost three hundred years and involved the clergy intimately. The literature on the Crusades provides what little information we have concerning the spiritual care of soldiers through the Middle Ages.  Although each of the Crusades had its own characteristic, often there was a Papal Legate who was the spiritual guide for the Crusaders.

Clerics needed the permission of their bishop to join the Crusade.  During their time of service they were not under the bishop’s jurisdiction. These men tended to the needs of the armies with the usual sacramental ministration as well as by tending the sick and burying the dead. Many religious military orders sprang up at this time, such as the Knights of Malta and the Knights Templar.

Thus, while there was no fully organized chaplaincy corps, there were many priests working full time with the military personnel throughout the Crusades.

The Birth of Modern Nations
As feudalism waned and nationalism developed, standing armies became a benchmark of society. Duke Alexander Farnese, deputy of the Hapsburg Emperor for the Low Countries, is usually credited with developing a juridically established military chaplaincy.

Concerned about the barbarism of his troops, and motivated by his Catholic piety, Farnese introduced various religious observances for his men and incorporated the clergy into the organizational structure of his army. How this was done canonically is unclear due to lack of historical documents, but it seems the Pope appointed an Apostolic Legate for the Hapsburg armies in the Low Countries who, in turn, had his vicar-general function as chief of chaplains.

Thus, something similar to a military vicariate was formed. The chaplains came from both secular (diocesan) and religious clergy, having been given permission from their ecclesiastical superiors. The Jesuits, in particular, took on this apostolate, and in 1587, Farnese set up a Missio Castrensis, a company of twenty-four Jesuit priests and brothers, who operated under detailed instructions, and were attached to individual regiments.

Early America
We know that heroic missionary priests came with the French, Spanish and Portuguese explorers and conquistadors to the Americas. However, their role was not primarily as ministers to the military. In fact, they were often in contention with the military and civil government due to the fact that their aim was the conversion of the native population. And yet, their work was intertwined with the efforts of the expeditionary forces. They were missionaries to the natives but also the parish priests of the European military community.

The American Revolution
The Continental Congress copied the British custom of having military chaplains and the tradition of earlier colonial governors who appointed chaplains to their militia. On 29 July, 1775, the Congress authorized chaplains to be included in the army with the pay of a captain. On 30th of April, 1779, John Paul Jones asked for a Catholic priest to serve aboard the Bon Homme Richard, especially in consideration of the French sailors abroad.  Nothing came of the request. While Catholics fought together with their fellow colonists for independence, no priests formed a part of the chaplaincy

At the time, there were only twenty priests within the Thirteen Colonies (all former Jesuits, after the suppression of their Order in 1773) serving only20,000 Catholics out of a total population of over two million. Furthermore, there was a great deal of anti-Catholic bias in the colonies stemming from England's religious strife.

In fact, the Quebec Act of 1774, guaranteeing religious freedom to Canadian Catholics was denounced, particularly in New England, as a betrayal of colonist by the King— a denunciation made with a vehemence that matched that of the protests against the Stamp Act. Furthermore, since the chaplains were originally picked according to the denomination of the majority of the troops in the regiment, we do not find any Catholic priests in that number.

So, Catholic troops were ministered to by local civilian clergy and sometimes by the chaplains of the French forces (about 100 priests accompanied the French army and navy to America), but on an informal basis. One priest, Father Louis Lotbiniere, is listed as a chaplain of the Continental Army, but was a French Canadian appointed by General Benedict Arnold for a regiment of Canadian volunteers. His canonical status was questionable.

Early United States
The history of the chaplaincy about the time of the War of 1812 is lacking because records of the War Department were destroyed when the British burned Washington. Of the twelve regular army chaplains in the War of 1812 whose names have survived, none were Catholic. Ministry to the troops would have come from civilian priests.

The first Catholic priest to serve as a Navy officer was Father Adam Marshall, SJ. He served on the North Carolina from 22 December 1824 until his death on board the ship on 20 September 1825. He had the position of "schoolmaster" but acted as chaplain to the Catholic sailors. He is generally acknowledged as the first priest commissioned to serve in the armed forces of the United States.

The Mexican War
In 1846, President Polk was concerned that the struggle with Mexico was being perceived on both sides as a sort of anti-Catholic crusade. So he was anxious to commission Catholic priests as army chaplains. Bishop Hughes of New York responded to a request of President Polk and talked to the Superior of the Jesuits, with the result that two Jesuits, Father John McElroy and Father Anthony Rey, were released from their assignments in Washington to serve with General Zachary Taylor's troops.

Father Rey was killed in Mexico during the war; Father McElroy served one year and returned east and, in 1863, founded Boston College. It seems clear that the two priests were not appointed as regular army chaplains but served as civilian government employees. President Polk also asked for a priest to serve with the Navy, but Bishop Hughes did not have a man available to send. No priest would be a Navy chaplain officially until 1888.

As forts were being set up in the westward expansion of the nation, chaplains were selected by each individual post. Often, the chief consideration was that the man be a schoolteacher, with the result that chaplains were not necessarily ministers, and sometimes quite unfit for any spiritual role. This situation led to the decision that only those chaplains would be accepted who got the recommendation of the highest authority of their denomination.

In the years just before the Civil War, records of the War Department indicate that among post chaplains in western forts, chosen by local authorities at the post, were at least three Catholic priests: Father Ignacio Ramirez at Fort Montgomery, California from 1850 to 1852; Father Michael Sheehan at Fort Belknap, Texas, from 1855 to 1859; and Father Peter DeSmet, SJ, in Utah in 1858.

The Civil War
It is estimated that at the outbreak of the Civil War there were about three million Catholics on a total population of thirty million. The great immigration of the 1850's had brought many Catholics from Ireland, Germany and the rest of Europe (and gave rise to anti-Catholic movements such as the Know-Nothing Party). The First Plenary Council of Baltimore of 1852, in its Nineteenth Decree, mentions abuses in the military that forced Catholic soldiers to attend Protestant services. The loyalty of Catholics during the Civil War helped to dissipate a great deal of nativist prejudice against the Church.

Volunteer units from various states often had a preponderance of Catholics and were accompanied by their local priests. It seems that about forty priests served as chaplains with the Union Army (probably about twenty at any given time). Approximately six hundred chaplains served with the Confederate troops and, of these, twenty-eight were known to be Catholic. No doubt other local priests served nearby installations and supplemented the official chaplains. But the scarcity of priests was a great concern. A German Catholic publication in Cincinnati complained that not one-tenth of the Catholics in the Army could receive the sacraments with any regularity.

Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul, writing later of his own experiences in the war as chaplain with the 5th Minnesota Infantry, lamented that thousands of Catholics never saw a priest during the war, and no one was near them at the moment of death. Not only the small number of priests but the lack of a centralized ecclesiastical structure to provide for Catholic chaplains created grave pastoral problems.

Faculties were given to priests by their own bishop for their own diocese, and further faculties had to be requested in each diocese through which the army traveled. So, for example, Archbishop Kendrick of Baltimore delegated Archbishop Hughes of New York to sub-delegate faculties to the chaplain of the N.Y. Irish Brigade. And Navy chaplains would need new faculties from port to port. A re-script from Pope Pius IX for both Union and Confederate chaplains extended chaplains' faculties beyond their diocese, at least temporarily, and granted a variety of practical concessions that civilian priests did not enjoy. But the Holy See did not intend a canonically independent and permanent chaplain corps; it merely provided overlapping jurisdiction for the duration of the war.

Although there was a lack of enough priests, those who did serve as chaplains, by their tireless zeal and professionalism, had a tremendous impact, not only on the Catholic troops, but also on the Protestant military leaders and the general public as they witnessed the priests in action. A distinguished Protestant general was quoted in the Atlantic Monthly of 1868 as stating that, as a class, the chaplains of the real utility were almost exclusively Roman Catholic chaplains. Father Peter Cooney, a Holy Cross priests with the Indiana Volunteers, not only was a hero to his men but also won two generals to the Catholic Faith.

On the Confederate side, Father Abram Ryan, a noted priest-poet, was held in such esteem that the citizens of Mobile erected a statue after his death. Father John Bannon, an Irishman with the Missouri Militia, was so impressive a figure that the Confederacy sent him on speaking missions to Europe. What little evidence we find of ecumenism and an end to bigotry appears most of all among the chaplains and the troops.

The Spanish American War
During the Indian Wars, eight priests served as post chaplains in the greatly reduced Army. They had the faculties of the local diocese since there was no other source of jurisdiction.

It was not until 1888 that the first Catholic priests was commissioned as a chaplain in the navy. He was Father Charles Henry Parks or New York, who served from 15 April 1888 to 25 January 1900. Before the end of the century, three more priests were commissioned in the Navy: Father William Reaney of Baltimore in 1892; Father John Chidwick of New York in 1895; and Father Louis Reynolds of Baltimore in 1900. Father Reaney had the distinction of being born on the frigate Constitution, and had the middle name "Ironsides." Father Chidwick was the chaplain of the Maine, and received a commendation for his efforts on behalf of his men when the ship was sunk in Havana Harbor.

The Spanish American War saw thousands of Catholics join the services. There were twelve priests who held commissions in the Army or Navy. Of the state regiments called up, nine had a Catholic chaplain.

A letter of the Apostolic See dated 4 July 1888 was a sort of first step towards a military vicariate for the United States. It granted exclusive competency to the Archbishop of New York to decide who could serve as a Navy chaplain. It further gave the Archbishop of New York special faculties which he could delegate to the new chaplains. But the faculties were to be exercised with the approval of the local diocese where the priest functioned.

After the was, in 1890, a commission of the U.S. archbishops under Cardinal Gibbons was set up to recruit priests for the military chaplaincy. This group, in 1905, appointed the Paulist Father Alexander Doyle to act as their representative with the federal government in matters concerning Catholic chaplains. After his death in 1912, another Paulist, Father Louis O'Hern, was appointed to continue this liaison work.

World War I
At the outbreak of the war, there were sixteen priests in the Regular Army and eight in the Navy (the number allowed by the War Department) and a further ten in the National Guard. The need for more chaplains was urgent, so the bishops of the Nation, who had just formed a National Catholic Was Council, called on all dioceses and religious communities to meet the crisis.

They responded generously, so that by Armistice Day, a total of 1,026 priests (762 diocesan and 264 religious) were serving with the armed forces in some capacity, with 740 of them commissioned in the Army and 44 in the navy. 165 priests served without commission as civilians paid by funds from the Knights of Columbus, and were solely under the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical authority. About thirty percent of the chaplains of World War I were Catholic priests. Seventeen priests died in service during the war.

The National Catholic War Council that the bishops had formed for the war emergency continued on at the war's end, now called the National Catholic Welfare Conference. It has evolved into the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Episcopal conference for the United States.

The far-flung battlefields of this great war made the old canonical regulations for priestly ministry totally inadequate to the situation. Various faculties were granted by separate Roman Congregations, sometimes directly to chaplains without going through an Episcopal ordinary. In the United States, as in other countries, the military constituted a vast diocese (in number of priests, laity and territory) with no regularly constituted head.

Chaplains had to turn some place for instructions and resources, perhaps to their own diocese, so far from their labors, or to a local diocese that knew nothing about them. Some drastic steps were necessary to get proper order into the pastoral ministry to military personnel. The Holy See, therefore, set out to appoint a bishop for each country to be the Ordinarius Castrensis, or Bishop for the Military.

For the United States, the Pope, on 24 November 1917, appointed Bishop Patrick Hayes, Auxiliary of New York, to be "Ordinary of all Catholics who fight in the army and the navy during the present war..." While being a chaplain did not involve incardination, all clerics in the service now looked to Bishop Hayes as their proper Ordinary for the duration of their military career. The United States government readily recognized Bishop Hayes as the definitive authority needed to endorse any priest for military service.

Bishop Hayes organized the Military Vicariate with its headquarters in the Archdiocese of New York and five regional vicariates. Bishop Hayes and his successors as Archbishop of New York served were now head of the Military Ordinariate. Special faculties for general absolution and the Eucharist and Marriage were among many privileges granted only to military chaplains through the Military Ordinariate.

World War II
Everyone could see the war coming. The first American peacetime conscription in 1940 brought millions into the service. Archbishop Spellman and Bishop O'Hara appealed to the hierarchy and the American clergy, with dramatic success. On 8 December 1941, Archbishop Spellman could say that we had five hundred chaplains on duty (out of 1,670 total chaplains).

From Pearl Harbor to the surrender of Japan, 2,453 priests served as Army chaplains and 817 as Navy chaplains. This was nine percent of the nation's Catholic clergy serving as commissioned chaplains. Seventy-six priests died in service. The figures do not include almost two thousand civilian auxiliary chaplains who also came under the jurisdiction of the Military Ordinariate.

Because the troops and chaplains were scattered around the world, Vicars Delegate were appointed with the powers of a Vicar General for a particular region of the globe. A wide range of special faculties was obtained by the Military Ordinariate for its priests regarding liturgy, dispensations, fasting, etc.,— changes that would eventually be put into practice for the whole Church after their usefulness had been proven in the military.

For the first time in our history, chaplains in rather large numbers became Prisoners of War and, under the worst of conditions, gave invaluable service to their fellow prisoners.

After World War II
The world would never be the same after the war. The United States was destined to live in a state of armed defense as the new "cold war" necessitated an American presence in outposts far from home. On 13 June 1946, the Holy See extended the Vicariate's jurisdiction to civilians serving the U.S. Government overseas (this jurisdiction was further extended on 4 November 1954).

Also in June of 1946, the Veterans Administration program was placed under the canonical jurisdiction of the Military Vicariate. Then the National Security Act of 1947 established the Air Force as a separate branch of service, which would have its own chaplain department. In 1948, Congress recognized the Civil Air Patrol as an official auxiliary unit of the Air Force.

The Korean Conflict
The struggle in Korea, from June 1950 to the truce of July 1953, was a United Nations police action in which units of various nations were under one integrated command. This unique situation led to an unparalleled canonical decision. In a letter of the Holy Father dated 27 September 1950, Catholic chaplains in Korea, of whatever country, were all given the same faculties and placed under the American Military Vicar.

During the war, there were 932 priests commissioned as American chaplains, assisted by 427 auxiliary chaplains. Six priests died in that action.

Vietnam
The Sixties and Seventies were years of ferment, confusion and division within the nation, within the Church, and in society at large. More than any other event, the Vietnam War symbolized the turmoil of the times, and the priest chaplain of that day had a heavier than usual burden, since he stood precisely where all the storms seemed to gather.

In 1970, at the peak of the Vietnam era, there were 435 priests in the Army (68 regular, 367 active reserve), 298 in the Navy (122 regular and 176 active reserve), 385 Air Force chaplains (114 regular and 271 active reserve). Seven of these priests died with their men in the war.

There were a further 615 Reserve chaplains and 288 priests working in the Veterans Administration. These priests were serving an estimated two million service people and their dependents scattered in the most unlikely corners of the world.

After the Vietnam Era to Operation Enduring Freedom
Following the War in Vietnam, priest chaplains continued to serve in all branches of the military, accompanying service people on bases in the United States and in 29 other countries, as far as England and Germany, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, and Turkey. In the 1990s, priest chaplains ministered to U.S. troops serving with UN forces in Bosnia and with U.S. military personnel in Kuwait as part of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War.

The twenty-first century began with heightened conflicts in the Middle East; the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center and the U.S. response to terrorism led to further U.S. military deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. Chaplains also work with returning military personnel, in programs such as the Army’s Deployment Cycle Support program to help returning soldiers meet the challenges as they reunite with their families, return to their communities, and re-establish their jobs at home base or in the civilian sector.

The July 12, 2002 Congressional Defense Authorization Bill included a commendation of Military Chaplain (SEC. 1069), recognizing the distinguished service of the nation’s military chaplains. In Arlington, Virginia, the "United in Memory" stained glass window, containing rings of 184 pieces, recalling the military and civilian lives lost in the attack against the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, was assembled by more than 400 U.S. Army chaplains and chaplain assistants. The stained glass window, donated by the Army Chaplain Corps, will be displayed in the Pentagon Memorial Chapel.

At the end of 2002, three hundred and sixty-nine priest chaplains were on active duty, 405 in the Reserves and National Guard, 82 full time and 34 part-time in the Veterans Administration facilities, and 55 permanent deacons on loan from 142 dioceses and 44 religious communities.