“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Celebrated in the 1964 movie, “Becket,” the royal gripe ? supposed proximate cause of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas a Becket?s 1170 martyrdom by retainers of King Henry II ? is conjured by Baltimore Archbishop Edwin F. O?Brien?s recent reminders to military chaplains that God must come before the state.
“Regardless of rank or power or position, the chaplain must see himself primarily as a man of God and not as an agent of the state,” O?Brien told a gathering of military ordinaries and chaplains Oct. 13 in Vatican City.
O?Brien said that chaplains should have a non-proselytizing respect and understanding of other faith groups? beliefs, customs and disciplines and a willingness to provide them with otherwise unavailable resources for prayer and worship.
“[The chaplain] must be the voice of conscience, not intimidated by rank or power in speaking out,” O?Brien added, at times alluding to the U.S. military?s 2006 prison scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
“It is significant, perhaps, that this prison did not have an assigned chaplain, though Army regulations required one,” the archbishop noted, underscoring the God-given human and religious rights of POWs and reaffirming the chaplaincy?s traditional support of conscientious objector status for service personnel opposed to life-taking.
“I agree,” said Attaulla Khan, interfaith outreach coordinator for the Islamic Society of Baltimore. “Chaplains should not only have a respect for other faiths, but they should be educated [in the tenets] of the major faiths. Khan added that reasonable religious accommodation, such as holy books and visits from a cleric, should also be provided POWs.
First reported by Catholic News Service, the former military chaplain?s presentation at a Vatican-sponsored course for interfaith cooperation fostering human and religious rights in conflict zones hammered home several Becket-like points on the primacy of religious obligation over military expediency.
“Where there is an acceptance of direct killing of noncombatant civilians, for instance, there is no chaplaincyworth its name,” O?Brien said. “Where torture is justified in eliciting prisoner information, chaplaincy is ineffective or nonexistent.”
Prior to his Oct. 1 elevation as archbishop ? or ordinary ? of the Baltimore archdiocese, O?Brien, headed the U.S. archdiocese for military services and served as a chaplain to front-line U.S. army troops during the Vietnam War.
He returned from Rome Oct. 16 and, according to Baltimore archdiocese spokesperson Sean Caine, will resume his orientation tour of area parishes later this month.
