Walter Reed National Military Medical Center issues a ‘cease and desist’ order on Catholic priests

'Essential pastoral care is taken away from the sick and the aged when it was so readily available'

Credit: Archdiocese of the Military. Archbishop Timothy Broglio (center) during Ash Wednesday Mass at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, March 2, 2022.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland, the military’s largest and best-known military hospital, staffed by Army, Navy, and Air Force as well as civilian personnel, announced what is essentially firing a group of Catholic priests and did so just prior to the holiest of weeks for Christians.

The convoluted explanation for the discontinuance of the contracted support provided by the Holy Name College, “a community of Franciscan Catholic priests and brothers,” was contained in muddled statements by Walter Reed.

Walter Reed, in a posted Tweet April 8 stated that the hospital is a "welcoming and healing environment that honors and supports a full range of religious, spiritual, and cultural needs." 

Walter Reed went on to explain that there is "currently a review of the pastoral care contract is under review to ensure it adequately supports the religious needs of our patients and beneficiaries."

None of that bureaucratic response explains anything.

In a statement, the Archdiocese for the Military Services, created by Pope John Paul II, has been providing services for decades, according to the Archdiocese, which says that a new contract was “awarded to a secular defense contracting firm that cannot fulfill the statement of work in the contract.” 

Credit: Archdiocese of the Military Services USA

Archbishop Timothy Broglio was clearly distraught.

“It is incomprehensible that essential pastoral care is taken away from the sick and the aged when it was so readily available,” he stated in the Archdiocese statement. “This is a classic case where the adage ‘if it is not broken, do not fix it’ applies.  I fear that giving a contract to the lowest bidder overlooked the fact that the bidder cannot provide the necessary service.  I earnestly hope that this disdain for the sick will be remedied at once...”

It also appears that there are questions as to whether Walter Reed is capable to meet the spiritual needs of the involved military community.

“The refusal to provide adequate pastoral care,” the Archdiocese maintains, “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.”

Further, “the (Archdiocese) maintains that without Catholic priests present at the medical center, service members and veterans are being denied the constitutional right to practice their religion,” according to the Archdiocese’s statement

We can assume it will be weeks, if ever, that an adequate response will come from either Walter Reed or the U.S. Department of Defense to address this issue publicly. It is clear, however, that neither has properly explained to the many users of the Walter Reed facilities.

This gross misjudgment requires an immediate investigation by the defense department’s inspector general. Members of the military must be able to trust that adequate pastoral services are available — wherever they are.

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James Hutton is a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army. Follow him on Twitter @jehutton.