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Posted on 10/15/2013 6:22:33 PM PDT by Morgana
ANN ARBOR, MI, October 15, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Catholic priest in Georgia has filed a lawsuit after he was barred from even volunteering to offer Mass at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base.
Father Ray Leonard, who is 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, launched the suit Monday in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Priests have been prohibited from offering Mass at military bases in the wake of the government shutdown, despite provisions in the Pay Our Military Act.
According to the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, only Catholic Masses have been banned at the Georgia Naval Base. Protestant services have continued. They say Father Leonard was told if he said Mass in violation of the order he could be subject to arrest.
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.
The priest, who served Tibetan populations in China for 10 years, told 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 and 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 crucial 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.
To express concerns to the President, the contact form is here.
I’ll say the same thing I said in the other thread on this story.
The Catholic priests (and nuns) I remember would have ignored the military and the government and given mass on the lawn outside the chapel. They would have peacefully demonstrated and caused a huge amount of bad publicity for these fascists. They would have thrown a real monkey wrench in the works. Passive resistance in the classic sense.
Filing a lawsuit? That’s just embarrassing. No wonder Christians are losing their religious freedoms.
So all the “government shutdown” that has the communists wetting their pants with joy really amounts to is the closure of WWII monuments, the National Parks and churches on military bases? Not much of a shutdown if you ask me.
The fascists are mean and spiteful.
But it will never happen, the ministry of propaganda will circle the wagons and do anything they can to protect Barky, even while they complain that the Obama regime is the LEAST transparent since the Nixon administration, and maybe EVER!
Mark
These fascists are also traitors. There is only one just and deserved outcome of an indictment, trial, and conviction of these traitors.
>Filing a lawsuit? That’s just embarrassing. No wonder Christians are losing their religious freedoms.<
.
In America, if you want justice, you get a lawyer — that’s the way it has become in 2013.
We are no longer living in the Roman Empire although Catholics had better prepare themselves for the possibility to some day have to shed their blood for their conviction right here at home.
Thank you all you Catholics who voted for Obama — greater idiocy I have never witnessed.
If they were Baptists, the church in town would have arranged car pools or vans from the base to the services.
Therefore a sixteen (16) mile journey to and from the off-base church
Do the JEWS get their services?? Muslims?? I'm guessing yes.
Only Baptists have bussed in people.
He adhered to the law. The Tudor state eventually (and shamefully) resorted to suborning perjury from a false witness.
Do not be so quick to judge, nor give over other people's bodies to be burned. This priest may be following in illustrious footsteps.
What has the smiling Cardinal Dolan,the head of the Bishops said on this matter?
Oh please Ann do you think the Protestants even CARE?
If it was their church however we would not hear the end of it.
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