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Government
Shuts down Catholic Services on Navy
Base;
Church locked;
Priest threatened with
arrest;
TMLC Files Federal
Lawsuit
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In the wake of the government
shutdown, despite provisions in the Pay Our Military
Act, Catholics at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in
Georgia are
being denied religious services. The Catholic priest who
serves this community has been prohibited from even
volunteering to celebrate Holy Mass without pay, and was
told that if he violated that order, he could be subject
to arrest. Protestant services continue to take
place. Only Catholic services have been
shutdown.
This is an
astonishing attack on religious freedom by the federal
government, and the latest affront towards the military
since the beginning of the shutdown.
As a result,
the Thomas
More
Law
Center (TMLC),
a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, today, filed a federal lawsuit
in the United
States District Court for the
District of
Columbia.
The lawsuit was
filed on behalf of Father Ray Leonard, a Catholic priest
contracted to serve as base chaplain and Fred Naylor,
one of Father Leonard’s parishioners and a retired
veteran with over 22 years of service. Fr. Leonard is a
civilian Catholic Pastor contracted by the Department of
Defense (DoD) to serve as a military chaplain at
Kings
Bay Naval
Submarine Base in Georgia.
Fr.
Leonard who served Tibetan populations in China for 10
years, informed the court in an affidavit; “In
China, I was disallowed
from performing public religious services due to the
lack of religious freedom in China. I
never imagined that when I returned home to the United
States, that I would be forbidden from practicing my
religious beliefs as I am called to do, and would be
forbidden from helping and serving my faith
community.”
On October 4, 2013, Fr. Leonard was
ordered to stop performing all of his duties as the
base’s Catholic Chaplain, even on a voluntary basis. He
was also told that he could be arrested if he violated
that order. The approximately 300 Catholic families,
including Fred Naylor’s, served by Fr. Leonard at
Kings Bay have been
unable to attend Mass on base since the beginning of the
shutdown.
Additionally, Fr. Leonard was locked
out of his on-base office and the chapel. Fr. Leonard
was also denied access to the Holy Eucharist and other
articles of his Catholic faith. The order has caused the
cancellation of daily and weekend mass, confession,
marriage preparation classes and baptisms as well as
prevented Fr. Leonard from providing the spiritual
guidance he was called by his faith to
provide.
The submarine base is remotely
located. It consists of roughly 16,000 acres, with
4,000 acres comprised of protected wetlands. There
are approximately 10,000 total people on the base.
A Catholic Church is located off base in the
town of St.
Mary’s. However, many of
the parishioners both live and work on base and do not
own a car and cannot otherwise access
transportation. Therefore a sixteen (16) mile
journey to and from the off-base church is simply not
possible. Moreover, many of the sailors have an
extremely limited amount of time off. With their
time highly regimented, they are not given a long enough
break time for this exceptionally long walk and the Mass
service.
Defendants in the lawsuit are the
Department of Defense (DoD), Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel, the Department of the Navy, and the Secretary of
the Department of the Navy, Ray Mabus.
Currently, about 25% of the US Armed Forces is
Catholic and due to a shortage of active duty Catholic
Priests, the DoD contracts Catholic Priests to provide
religious services, sacraments and support for other
religious practices for military base communities.
Catholic Priests serve the Military
Archdiocese.
For active duty service members, on
base religious services are extremely important given
issues associated with off base transportation,
extremely limited time off and the highly scheduled
lifestyle of active military duty. Additionally, as
service members tend to have high rates of divorce,
depression and suicide, the need for readily available
spiritual encouragement and guidance is
critical.
The Pay Our Military Act, which was
enacted before the beginning of the government shutdown,
provides provisions for the funding of employees whose
responsibilities contribute to the morale and well-being
of the military. The government has previously been
criticized for interpreting the Act to not include
military death benefits. Now, in yet another bizarre
interpretation of the Act, some chaplains are not
considered covered by these provisions, leaving Catholic
members of some military facilities without spiritual
guidance.
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