BETHESDA, Maryland (LifeSiteNews) – The Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS), USA announced that “the Franciscan priests and friars of Holy Name College Friary of Silver Spring, MD, are back on the job ministering to patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after a two-month interruption in pastoral service due to a now-resolved contract issue.”
Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, announced June 15 that “the U.S. Defense Health Agency (DHA) has awarded a new five-year contract renewable annually to the Franciscans, who had served the medical center as chaplains for nearly 20 years before their contract expired and was awarded to a secular defense contractor without the means to provide Catholic clergy in April, just days before Holy Week, prompting Archbishop Broglio to call the move an encroachment on service members’ First Amendment Right to the Free Exercise of Religion.”
READ: GOP congressmen demand answers on Walter Reed’s ‘cease and desist’ order to Catholic priests
According to the statement, because to these concerns, “the DHA reopened bidding in May and on June 8 awarded the Franciscans a new contract. The Franciscans returned to Walter Reed yesterday [June 14], providing the same service as before with a team of five friars taking turns on-site six days a week to minister to those hospitalized.”
After the hospital’s contract with the Franciscans was terminated in April, 26 U.S. congressmen wrote to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding to know why the largest defense health agency medical center in the country had ordered Catholic priests to “cease and desist” their pastoral care.
Republican U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey wrote a separate letter to Austin likewise requesting an explanation for the decision to drop the contract with the Catholic priests in favor of a “for-profit defense contractor.”
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center told the Franciscan Holy Name College Friary community, who had served military members and veterans at the center for over 20 years, to discontinue all Masses, sacraments, and other ministry upon termination of their contract with the center on March 31, just before Holy Week.
The center initially opted instead to contract with the secular Mack Global, LLC, which supplies industrial machinery, raw materials, and training equipment, and which had no authority to provide spiritual ministry to Catholic patients, such as Mass or the sacraments.
The Archdiocese for Military Services issued a scathing response to the removal of the priests, which it also characterized as unconstitutional, stating, “The refusal to provide adequate pastoral care while awarding a contract for Catholic ministry to a for-profit company that has no way of providing Catholic priests to the medical center is a glaring violation of service members’ and veterans’ Right to the Free Exercise of Religion.”
“Especially during Holy Week, the lack of adequate Catholic pastoral care causes untold and irreparable harm to Catholics who are hospitalized and therefore a captive population whose religious rights the government has a constitutional duty to provide for and protect,” the statement continued.
In this week’s statement, Archbishop Broglio expressed gratitude to the U.S. Army Chief of Chaplains for personally helping to resolve the controversy.
“I am very grateful to the Army Chief of Chaplains, Chaplain Thomas L. Solhjem, MG, USA, for his personal intervention and interest in resolving the question of Catholic pastoral care at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center,” Broglio wrote. “He moved quickly to assure the presence of additional Catholic priests from the Army Reserves as soon as the contract with the Franciscan Friars ended. He also made certain that the needs of Catholics were addressed in the renegotiation of the contract.”
According to the Archdiocese for Military Services, “Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is one of many medical centers within the Department of Defense and the DHA whose pastoral care lies within the ecclesial jurisdiction of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, the only Catholic authority for endorsing and granting faculties to Catholic priests and chaplains to serve in the U.S. Military.”
Rejoicing that Catholic priests will once again be ministering to the spiritual needs of the nation’s veterans, Broglio said, “Of course, it is a source of great joy that the Franciscans have returned to the medical center and care for patients and staff there.”
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