The best thing to do in order to grow and strengthen a religion is to persecute its members.
I'm not Roman Catholic, but this is absolutely right.
23 posted on 10/4/2013 5:28:28 PM by COBOL2Java (quoting John Schlageter, the General Counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services): “If you are a Catholic stationed in Japan or Korea and are served by a Contract or GS priest, unless you speak Korean or Japanese and can find a church nearby, then you have no choice but to go without Mass this weekend. Until the Federal Government resumes normal operations, or an exemption is granted to contract or GS priests, Catholic services are indefinitely suspended at many of those worldwide installations served by contract and GS priests.”
As COBOL2Java pointed out, there is now an obvious and immediate problem in some locations such as South Korea and Japan where Roman Catholic troops will go without the sacraments this Sunday because GS civilian priests are not allowed to celebrate Mass.
I suspect that in South Korea the local Roman Catholic civilian dioceses may be able to arrange exchanges in which American priests celebrate Mass in local Korean Roman Catholic parishes while the local Korean priest celebrates Mass on post. By using translators, it could work, and might even end up being a good thing. Even in Korea's more isolated rural areas, there are probably Roman Catholic priests somewhere else in the local civilian diocese who will welcome the opportunity for an exchange — particularly those who may have served as KATUSAs assigned to the US Army for their mandatory Korean military duty.
But Japan is a whole different story, and it may be simply impossible to find local Japanese priests.
This situation is unacceptable for Roman Catholics. Protestants can “fill in” with lay preachers, but Roman Catholics, based on their understanding of the Mass, can't do that.
This needs to get **WIDE** attention in Roman Catholic military circles, and I hope some soldier somewhere sues over this.