Archbishop for the U.S. Military Services Timothy Broglio to host reception at Marines’ Memorial Club and Hotel, 609 Sutter Street
SAN FRANCISCO—Northern Californians will have a unique opportunity on Tuesday to support Catholics in the United States Military. His Excellency, the Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio, J.C.D., Archbishop for the Military Services, USA, will host a benefit reception in the Marines’ Memorial Club and Hotel at 609 Sutter Street, San Francisco.
Proceeds will go to support the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS), the sole Catholic Church jurisdiction responsible for providing pastoral care and ministry to Catholic men and women serving the nation in uniform, those receiving in-patient treatment in the nation’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers, and the families of these populations.
To those it serves, the AMS is the principal source of ecclesiastical support for practice of the Catholic Faith. The AMS administers, among other services: Church-approved religious education and faith formation programs; a running data base of sacraments celebrated on U.S. Military installations around the world since 1917, and a full-time staff to process sacramental record submissions and requests; regular publication of newsletters; a dynamic website and other forms of communication in new media and social media; a tribunal; and a vocations office. The AMS has total responsibility for providing government-required endorsement and faculties for Catholic priests to serve as chaplains—both active-duty and reserve—in the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Coast Guard, the Air Force and the VA. Archbishop Broglio and his four auxiliary Bishops make regular pastoral visits to their extended flock, celebrating confirmations, consulting with chaplains, and attending to other episcopal responsibilities.
The cost of providing all these services amounts to more than $5 million per year in operating expenses, not including seminary expenses now running nearly an additional $400,000 per year for the education and formation of prospective new chaplains to relieve a chronicshortage of Catholic priests on active duty. The AMS receives no funding from the military or the government and depends entirely on private giving for survival.
