On Ministering in Tragedy

As America commemorates the 12th anniversary of the jihadist terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, one of the iconic images which personalized the atrocity was the photo of Father Mychal Judge, OFM.   Fr. Judge was a 68 year old Franciscan Friar who was the pastor at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Manhattan as well as being a chaplain for the New York Fire Department since 1994.

After the World Trade Center was burning from the plane bombs which were deliberately flown into the office towers, Fr. Judge rushed to the scene of the attacks to minister to those in need.





 After administering last rites to an injured firefighter, Fr. Judge was struck by falling debris and killed.  Fr. Judge was the first recorded fatality following the terror attack. Some have dubbed the image of five emergency workers carrying the remains of the fallen Fr. Judge as the "American Pietà"

Fr. Judge's example of heroic ministry to those in their time of need is an excellent counter-example to the trend of barring clergy at mass casualty events.  After the Boston Bombing on Patriots Day 2013, priests in adjacent parishes rushed to the scene of the Boston Marathon Massacre to anoint the dying, but  police refused  them access to the bomb victims. As eight year old Martin Richard lay dying from shrapnel from the pressure cooker bomb, two priests were denied access to the scene, which may have prevented him from receiving Last Rites.

While Fr. Tom Curzon, OMV, who was one of the priests turned away from the Boston Marathon Bombing, later said that he understood that:

They [law enforcement] were trying to keep safe a very unstable, chaotic area. Even the police who were there on the perimeter, they had no idea what was behind them. All they knew was that they needed to clear out the area, and they had no idea how much they themselves were standing in harm's way.

The clergy who rushed to minister to the bombing casualties resorted to set up a table to distribute fruit and water to those who approached them.

While safely securing a perimeter by law enforcement makes sense, it is premised on the presumably unimpeachable "safety" provision.  This ignores decades of tradition where ministers worked side by side with what we would today call emergency workers to do their spiritual work. Asymmetrical warfare and terror  tactics may provoke some caution in emergencies, but priests and ministers have long heeded Christ's exhortation that: “No greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15: 13), especially in emergencies.

Sixty years after his death,  Fr. Emil Kapaun, an Army Chaplain was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery on the battlefield and in prison camp during the Korean War.  When his commanders ordered an evacuation of their position, Fr. Kapaun stayed with the wounded, comforting the injured and the dying.  In prison camp, his comfort and ministering, Fr. Kapaun's faith was instrumental.  As President Barack Obama put it during the presentation of the medal:

That faith -- that they might be delivered from evil, that they could make it home -- was perhaps the greatest gift to those men; that even amidst such hardship and despair, there could be hope; amid their misery in the temporal they could see those truths that are eternal; that even in such hell, there could be a touch of the divine. Looking back, one of them said that that is what “kept a lot of us alive.”

Even though Fr. Kapaun was ministering to the military on the battlefield, the virtues of giving hope to those in their time of despair and caring for the spiritual health of their souls at a time of trauma. 

 While there certainly is a security element in the impetus to bar ministers from mass casualty circumstances, it may also be an imposition of secular civics, either out of political correctness or atheist over-expansion of the "separation of church and state".

On September 10th, 2001, Fr. Judge gave what turned out to be his final homily to firefighters. Fr. Judge's  peroration  was focused on firemen, but his words ring true to ministers in a mass casualty situation:

What great people.  We love the job.  We all do.  What a blessing that is.  A difficult, difficult job and God calls you to it.  And then He gives you a love for it so that a difficult job will be well done.  Isn't He a wonderful God?  Isn't He good to you?  To each one of you?  And to me!  Turn to Him each day.  Put your faith and your trust and your hope and your life in His hands, and He'll take care of you and you'll have a good life.

Fr. Judge embodied that exhortation.  A prayer was found in the pocket of the fallen New York Fire Department's Chaplain which has been put on plaques and prayer cards and epitomizes the call of ministry.

A PC DOD is FUBAR

Last Thursday, President Obama posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, to Korean War Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun for his heroic bravery.  It is sad to think so soon afterwards  that we need to consider how the Department of Defense fervently seems to battle the military chaplaincy and traditional religiosity to evangelize for faith in politcal correctness. Recently, the U.S. Army proffered Equal Opportunity training for Pennsylvania Reserve Troops that included this helpful poster on “extremist groups”.  

The Army presentation stipulates that extremism is a complex phenomenon present in many religions when "some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs and traditions are the only 'right way' and that all others are practicing their faith the 'wrong way,' seeing and believing that their faith/religion superior to all others."

 It is fascinating to see how Evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Catholics were lumped in with Al Quaeda (spelled incorrectly in official Army materials), the Ku Klux Klan and Hamas as dangerous extremist groups. And being leery of the spread of Sharia over secular democratic civil lawyer is also defined as a hate group "Islamophobia".

  The American Family Association postulates that the Army relied upon propaganda from the Southern Poverty Law Center to label Catholics and Evangelicals as extremist because of this scriptural stances considering  homosexual relations sinful and opposing same-sex so called marriage.  The danger of the state imposing laws for same sex marriage is that the force of government makes opposing views anathematic, even if it is a tradition that has ordered Western society for thousands of years and is deeply held spiritual beliefs. 

 There is the fear that non-profits and churches which dissent from the state stampede of same sex marriage may lose their tax exempt status, especially based upon charters for many charity organizations which stipulate following the societal law.  ***

Lest anyone think that the PC DOD is all about hot button societal moral issues, consider the way the Obama Administration has used America’s military to advance his political agenda with little regard to national security. 

***

It is frightening to think that as we live in an increasingly dangerous world that a PC DOD is more concerned about making political points that it is about defending our nations interests.  If that is the case then it is not SNAFU but FUBAR.

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Praising the Valor of Medal of Honor Recipient Fr. Emil Kapaun

President Obama Giving Medal of Honor to Fr. Kapaun's nephew Ray

Father Emil Kapaun is a Kansas born US Army Chaplain who was post-humously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor six decades after his death in a North Korean prisoner of war camp. Fr. Kapuan is the fifth Catholic chaplain who has been given the Nation’s highest honor.  Fr. Kapaun has been recognized as a Servant of God, meaning that a case has been opened at the Vatican to explore beatification.

 Fr. Kapaun’s Congressional Medal of Honor was presented to his nephew Ray.  President Obama's  remarks at the award ceremony captured the valor which Fr. Kapaun displayed as well as demonstrating the value of the chaplaincy to the troops, especially in the duress of enemy

captivity. ***

Statue of Chaplain Kapaun, Pilsen, Kansas

What jumped out from this tribute was the observation from one of his POW comrades was how Fr. Kapaun’s very presence could make a mudhole seem like a cathedral.  The presence of a positive and faithful priest gives a glimpse of the Kingdom of God so the the mundane transcends into the magical.

 The humility, self-sacrifice and ridicule which Fr. Kapaun displayed followed the hard teachings of the Messiah is inspiring.  And the hope that Fr. Kapuan instilled in the internment camp gave them a reason to survive their hellish treatment by the enemy mirrors Passiontide. It is sad that the public has been conditioned to bemoan the tragedies of warfare without really appreciating the heroics of our brave troops, particularly from a chaplain 62 years later. May we all be inspired by the valor which Fr. Kapaun displayed on the field of battle and suffering in prison for righteousness.  And may we remember that we have a G.I. intercessor in heaven.

Army Chaplain Fr. Kapuan offering Mass on the Korean battlefield, Oct. 1950

Lord Jesus, in the midst of the folly of war, your servant, Chaplain Emil Kapaun, spent himself in total service to you on the battlefields and in the prison camps of Korea, until his death at the hands of his captors. We now ask you, Lord Jesus, if it be your will, to make known to all the world the holiness of Chaplain Kapaun and the glory of his complete sacrifice for you by signs of miracles and peace. In your name, Lord, we ask, for you are the source of peace, the strength of our service to others, and our final hope. Amen.

Chaplain Kapaun, pray for us.

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