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WASHINGTON, DC — Back-to-school season brings new hope of relief for a severe Catholic chaplain shortage in the U.S. Military. Among the several hundred prospective priests entering American Catholic seminaries for the first time this fall, at least 10 plan to go on active duty as chaplains after ordination.
The U.S. Military is in desperate need of their services. Currently, 25% of the U.S. Armed Forces is Catholic, but Catholic priests make up only 7% of chaplains. At present, 196 priests are on active duty, providing pastoral care for more than 300,000 Catholic men and women in uniform spread across installations around the world, not counting their families.
The shortage, growing for decades, is due mainly to attrition: aging priest-chaplains are reaching retirement faster than they can be replaced. Consequently, with Catholic chaplains spread so thin, Catholic military members sometimes go weeks at a time without access to a priest, Mass, or the sacraments.
The 10 new chaplain hopefuls have been admitted to the “Co-Sponsored Seminarian Program” (CSP), a vocations partnership between the Washington, DC-based Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS), and dozens of partner dioceses and religious communities around the country. Their arrival brings to more than 30 the total number of prospective military chaplains now enrolled in the CSP.
Most of those currently enrolled will participate in the AMS’s upcoming annual Labor Day Weekend gathering for Co-Sponsored Seminarians at the Edwin Cardinal O’Brien Pastoral Center. The event, to be held this year from Aug. 30-Sept. 1, will give the seminarians an opportunity to get to know each other, take part in Mass and prayer together, hold discussions about military ministry, and spend time with AMS Vocations Director Father Marcel Taillon and His Excellency, the Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio, J.C.D., who always participates in the yearly gathering. They’ll also have time to build fellowship in common activities such as sightseeing around the Nation’s Capital. The Knights of Columbus will provide a Saturday barbecue lunch.
Donate to the AMS and its Vocations Program at milarch.org/donate.
Young men interested in discerning a priestly vocation, and the vocation within a vocation to serve those who serve in the U.S. Military, can find more information at www.milarch.org/vocations, or may contact Father Taillon at vocations@milarch.org.
