WASHINGTON, D.C. – American Catholics nationwide will have an opportunity this weekend to offer charitable support for pastoral care to the faithful in the United States Military, the nation’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers, and those working in a civilian capacity for the U.S. government in other countries. Most U.S. parishes will take up the National Collection for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS) at Sunday Masses the weekend of Nov. 5-6, 2022. (Some dioceses have already taken up the collection and others will do so as late as early in 2023.) AMS faithful will also have an opportunity to participate with a suggested designated offering to be taken the same weekend, or by making an individual donation.
In an online video message, His Excellency, the Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio, J.C.D., Archbishop for the Military Services, counsels the faithful: “Your generous gift could make all the difference in the world. I humbly beseech you: please do not make the men and women who defend our freedoms—including the freedom to exercise our Catholic faith—give up that freedom for themselves and their families while protecting yours. Your gift to the National Collection for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA will provide for the spiritual needs not only of Catholics on active duty but also those in the reserves, future military leaders at the four U.S Military Academies, veterans battling disease and other long-term effects of war, and civilians serving our Nation in other countries in other ways. No amount is too large or too small. Give what you can. I am deeply grateful for your help.”
This year’s collection to support the AMS mission—“Serving Those Who Serve”—is the fourth of its kind since the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved the collection in 2012 for the Sunday before Veterans Day every third year beginning in 2013. The AMS was erected by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1985 to provide the Catholic Church’s full range of ecclesiastical support, pastoral care, and liturgical celebration to Catholics in the U.S. Armed Forces; the nation’s 153 VA medical centers spread throughout the fifty states, Puerto Rico, and Guam; federal civilian jobs beyond U.S. borders; and the families of these populations. All told, 1.8 million American Catholics worldwide depend on this global archdiocese and its endorsed chaplains, priests, deacons, and lay leaders for their spiritual well-being, religious practice, and free exercise of faith. The AMS receives no government or military funding and depends entirely on private giving to survive and thrive.
The need for support is particularly urgent in the AMS Office of Vocations, which is working proactively to fill a desperate shortage of Catholic priests on active duty. The shortage is due to attrition: aging chaplains are reaching the military’s mandatory retirement age faster than they can be replaced. Over the past two decades, the roster of Catholic priests on active duty has declined from more than 400 to fewer than 185. Currently, 25% of the U.S. military is Catholic, but Catholic priests make up only about 7% of the chaplain corps. “Without your help,” Archbishop Broglio said, “I may one day be unable to provide Catholic priests to the Military. If the Armed Forces were ever to be completely without priests, most observers agree that they would soon be completely without chaplains of any kind.” Currently, 40 prospective priest/chaplains are enrolled in the Co-Sponsored Seminarian Program, a partnership set up in the mid-1980s between the AMS and cooperating dioceses and religious communities to encourage military commitments from candidates for the priesthood. The AMS pays half their tuition and other seminary expenses amounting to more than $5 million over the next five years alone.
That’s in addition to the AMS’s annual operating budget of more than $8 million, which covers, among other mission-critical expenses:
- Global travel of AMS bishops and clergy staff; Archbishop Broglio and his four auxiliaries travel year-round to U.S. Military installations worldwide consulting with chaplains and lay leaders, celebrating Mass, and administering sacraments including baptism, confirmation, and penance.
- Promotion of catechetical standards and indicators for children of military families in grades pre-K through 12: Forming Disciples for the New Evangelization: Archdiocesan Religion Curriculum Guide.
- Online and on-site Catechetical Methodology courses and Catechist Certification programming.
- Faith formation initiatives for youth and young adults that include spiritual discernment, leader trainings, retreats, and international conferences.
- Partnership with Life Teen to support Catholic youth and families in military settings.
- Operation of the AMS website, mobile app, and social media, the principal means of communication between the AMS and those she serves.
- Video production and televising of noteworthy events in the Archdiocese such as messages from the Archbishop, the annual Memorial Mass, training for ministry leaders, World Youth Day, the annual Chrism Mass, and more.
- Centralized sacramental record keeping. Unlike territorial dioceses where records of sacraments are stored at the parish level, the AMS has no canonical parishes. Records are thus stored centrally at the Edwin Cardinal O’Brien Pastoral Center, the AMS headquarters in Washington, DC, where a full staff maintains a growing data base of more than three million records dating back to World War I.
- Tribunal adjudication of marriage annulment applications and other issues of canon law.
- Public advocacy for religious freedom and Catholic teaching.
For more information on the Triennial National Collection for the AMS, including a list of participating dioceses, go to: milarch.org/nationalcollection. The next National Collection for the AMS is not scheduled until November 2025. To make a donation to the 2022 National Collection for the AMS, go to https://donate.milarch.org/page/110511/donate/1.
