Crisis Magazine—“It is a mistake, even heresy,” warned St. Francis de Sales, to “banish the devout life from the company of soldiers.” But the current U.S. administration did just that by evicting priests from the facility, and turned Holy Week into Hell Week for Catholic servicemembers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The issue, as announced by the Archdiocese for Military Services, is by now well-known. As Holy Week began, Franciscan priests from Holy Name College, who ministered to 
patients at the hospital, were told their contract to provide pastoral care had ended and it was time for them to hit the bricks.
A spokesman for the Defense Health Agency (DHA), the bureaucracy at the heart of the matter, explained to Fox News that the Holy Name contract “was NOT terminated” on March 31, two days before Palm Sunday. Rather, that was the “contract end date.” In other words, precise vocabulary is the problem, not the Easter eviction of the priests.
Holy Week is a curious time for Walter Reed to jettison clergy. It’s a time rich in meaning: the Lenten season of fasting and almsgiving winds down, Christ’s suffering is mourned, and the Resurrection of our Lord is celebrated. As a practical matter, it’s a busy week for the faithful and one that “require[s] the presence of validly ordained priests,” as Senator Marco Rubio pointed out.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Rubio stressed the importance of the sacred events and the need for ordained priests to preside over them. “On Holy Thursday,” the Florida senator wrote,
the Catholic Church celebrates the institution of both the priesthood and the Most Holy Eucharist, which Catholics believe to be the true presence of Jesus Christ in body, blood, soul, and divinity. Depriving service members and veterans, who are receiving care, of the ability to enter into the Paschal Mystery with priests is utterly unconscionable.
It seems to matter little to the Defense Health Agency that patients were denied an adequate number of priests to offer sacraments, including the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Reconciliation, the Eucharist, or Last Rights.
Mack Global vs. ordained priest
The DHA was content that, on April 1, pastoral care responsibilities at Walter Reed fell to a secular, for-profit entity, Mack Global, which provides “telework consulting services, administrative and religious staffing, transportation and roadway services, [and] professional development and training.” Impressive as that may be, Mack Global can’t perform the sacred duties of an ordained priest.
Archbishop Broglio cuts to the chase
Unimpressed with this transition is Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Archdiocese for Military Services. “[It’s like] hiring a brain surgeon who didn’t go to medical school,” he said. Broglio wants committed clergy overseeing the spiritual care of America’s warriors and their religious needs given proper attention. Put another way, Christ did not enlist a temp agency when making the first hires for His Church. Our Lord personally selected His disciples and onboarded them Himself. He wasn’t looking for remote workers. He required disciples who were willing to drop everything to follow Him.
The fired Franciscans displayed that kind of devotion. When their contract ended on March 31, the priests became volunteers and their ministry continued. Their devotion to duty irritated the DHA, who demanded they stop practicing their faith.
Franciscan priests stayed on to serve veterans, but DHA stomped on that in ultimate violation of Religious Liberty!
“The previous contractor [the Franciscans] continued to provide services after April 1st,” a DHA spokesman said. For that reason, “a cease and desist letter was sent stating the former contractor could not perform services since they were not under contract.”
The cease and desist order violates the religious liberty of both priest and patient. It is a government lockdown of the priest’s sacred office, and it enjoins the lay person from the free exercise of his religion. On the civility scale, it doesn’t even register. It’s a cold heart that issues an injunction to the Savior’s servants… read more
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