Chaplain shortage strains military ministry
Posted: Monday, June 11, 2007
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) -- Five of the 10 slots for military chaplains in the South Dakota Army National Guard are empty, and that has Col. Joseph Holzhauser on a mission of recruitment.
Holzhauser, who is better known at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Huron as Father Joe, is one of five National Guard chaplains -- four of them part-time -- who serve the state's 3,400 National Guard personnel and their families.
"This is the lowest we've been in several years," Holzhauser said about chaplain numbers.
The state's 50 percent vacancy rate is even lower than the national average for the Guard, according to Lt. Col. Randall Dolinger, a spokesman for the Army Office of the Chief of Chaplains. Dolinger said the Army is trying to fill 452 chaplain vacancies, which include active duty, reserves and National Guard. The vast majority of those shortages are in National Guard units.
Nationwide, the Guard fills about 60 percent of its chaplaincies; the regular Army has 90 percent of its chaplain slots full, Dolinger said.
Ellsworth Air Force Base has six active-duty chaplains, one of whom is currently deployed, a base spokesman said. An Air Force reservist chaplain, the Rev. Pierre Allegre of Rapid City, is also assigned to Ellsworth.
The South Dakota National Guard plans to add one more chaplain this fall, Holzhauser said, but it struggles to replenish an aging chaplaincy in what he says is a "young person's" job.
"I'm the only one (Roman Catholic priest) in the Army National Guard here, and I'm 51 years old. I'm not going to be around forever," he said.
Increased mobilization and deployments of Guard units in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also makes recruitment more difficult. In 21 years with the South Dakota National Guard, Holzhauser, who is the highest-ranking chaplain in the state, has deployed twice -- to Desert Storm and to Afghanistan from May 2004 to February 2005.
"Deployments are hard on everyone, and they're stressful for chaplains, too," Holzhauser said.
Recruitment of military chaplains is further complicated by age, ordination and seminary-accreditation requirements. Chaplain candidates must be younger than 40. Because many clergy in South Dakota come to the ministry as a second career, they are often older than that, Holzhauser said.
In addition, the military has seminary formation requirements for its chaplains and does not recognize Bible college graduates. "You must graduate from an accredited seminary, and you must be ordained in some denomination," Holzhauser said. "Unfortunately, pastors who are in the right age bracket are often serving in nondenominational or independent churches and haven't been in an accredited formation program."
The Army recognizes more than 265 religions and sects that can supply chaplains.
Holzhauser is joined by three other part-time chaplains: Maj. Sandy Aakre, a Baptist minister from Vermillion; Lt. Col. David Gunderson, a Lutheran minister from Yankton; and Capt. Thomas Tedmon, Sioux Falls, who is ordained in the Southern Baptist Convention. Maj. Lynn Wilson, the only one of the five chaplains who is a full-time Guard employee, recently joined the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
None of the five is currently deployed, but they continue to oversee the pastoral counseling needs of Guardsmen even while serving their own civilian congregations, Wilson said.
"Part-time chaplaincies are almost full-time ministries," he said. "They are always on call for both their civilian and their military pastoral duties. It can be very stressful."
They also assist on all casualty notifications for military deaths. Holzhauser has been on five of those calls.
Chaplain shortages are most acute among Roman Catholic priests, Dolinger said. According to the military's religious demographics, 20 percent of all military personnel list a Roman Catholic religious affiliation. Only 7 percent of Army chaplains are Roman Catholic.
The active-duty Army needs 300 Catholic priests to adequately serve its members. It has 89, Dolinger said. "In the Army National Guard, we need 150 Catholic priests, and we have 36 of them."
That reflects an overall Catholic priest shortage in the civilian world. "We don't hold up our share," Holzhauser said.
All Roman Catholic priests serving in the military do so with the permission of their local bishops, and, he points out, "all bishops experience a shortage of priests in their own diocese."
Dolinger argues that congregations of all faiths should take a more active role in supplying chaplains to deployed servicemen. "If more churches saw that as a ministry to the military, we wouldn't have these shortages," he said. "As one man said to me the other day, 'Of course we're short of priests all over, but shouldn't we be short here at home, rather than short our sons and daughters who are serving over there?"
Holzhauser said daily Mass at a rotating list of 28 locations in Afghanistan. He usually traveled by air, because helicopters were safer than ground travel. Continuing to meet the religious and emotional needs of servicemen with sufficient chaplains of all faiths is imperative, he said.
"Because we're in the fifth year of a global war on terror, and because we continue to send and to bring back people from that war, those soldiers and their families are both stressed in every aspect of their lives because of that. They need our support," he said.
Wilson, who deployed to Iraq for one year with a 370-member Guard unit, agrees.
The recruitment of more military chaplains is "absolutely vital" in a state where Guard personnel are spread over a large geographic area. Wilson often speaks at churches where people ask what they can do to support deployed troops and their families.
"If we have the mindset to send a care package to a soldier overseas, what if a church would send a spiritual care package in the form of a chaplain -- a man or woman who loves the Lord. That's a great gift that a church can give to the men and women in the military."
Too often, Dolinger said, National Guard and reservist chaplains who serve long deployments are often the least protected from work issues in the civilian world because of church-state separation issues.
"So often, pastors are at the greatest risk of unemployment when they return from long deployments because they don't have a guarantee to get their church back when they return," he said. "We really need the support of congregations to let their pastors go."
That's what Realis Community Church in Rapid City did from May through September of 2006, when Allegre, its senior pastor, served as a chaplain at Balad Air Base in Iraq. Instead of pastoring his Christian Missionary Alliance congregation of 100 people in Rapid City, he spent six months providing counseling, Bible study and worship services to airmen and Army troops at Balad.
"I wanted to provide ministry to troops in harm's way. I was honored to do it," Allegre said. "My congregation was great about it. They were very supportive."
Holzhauser, who is better known at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Huron as Father Joe, is one of five National Guard chaplains -- four of them part-time -- who serve the state's 3,400 National Guard personnel and their families.
"This is the lowest we've been in several years," Holzhauser said about chaplain numbers.
The state's 50 percent vacancy rate is even lower than the national average for the Guard, according to Lt. Col. Randall Dolinger, a spokesman for the Army Office of the Chief of Chaplains. Dolinger said the Army is trying to fill 452 chaplain vacancies, which include active duty, reserves and National Guard. The vast majority of those shortages are in National Guard units.
Nationwide, the Guard fills about 60 percent of its chaplaincies; the regular Army has 90 percent of its chaplain slots full, Dolinger said.
Ellsworth Air Force Base has six active-duty chaplains, one of whom is currently deployed, a base spokesman said. An Air Force reservist chaplain, the Rev. Pierre Allegre of Rapid City, is also assigned to Ellsworth.
The South Dakota National Guard plans to add one more chaplain this fall, Holzhauser said, but it struggles to replenish an aging chaplaincy in what he says is a "young person's" job.
"I'm the only one (Roman Catholic priest) in the Army National Guard here, and I'm 51 years old. I'm not going to be around forever," he said.
Increased mobilization and deployments of Guard units in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also makes recruitment more difficult. In 21 years with the South Dakota National Guard, Holzhauser, who is the highest-ranking chaplain in the state, has deployed twice -- to Desert Storm and to Afghanistan from May 2004 to February 2005.
"Deployments are hard on everyone, and they're stressful for chaplains, too," Holzhauser said.
Recruitment of military chaplains is further complicated by age, ordination and seminary-accreditation requirements. Chaplain candidates must be younger than 40. Because many clergy in South Dakota come to the ministry as a second career, they are often older than that, Holzhauser said.
In addition, the military has seminary formation requirements for its chaplains and does not recognize Bible college graduates. "You must graduate from an accredited seminary, and you must be ordained in some denomination," Holzhauser said. "Unfortunately, pastors who are in the right age bracket are often serving in nondenominational or independent churches and haven't been in an accredited formation program."
The Army recognizes more than 265 religions and sects that can supply chaplains.
Holzhauser is joined by three other part-time chaplains: Maj. Sandy Aakre, a Baptist minister from Vermillion; Lt. Col. David Gunderson, a Lutheran minister from Yankton; and Capt. Thomas Tedmon, Sioux Falls, who is ordained in the Southern Baptist Convention. Maj. Lynn Wilson, the only one of the five chaplains who is a full-time Guard employee, recently joined the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
None of the five is currently deployed, but they continue to oversee the pastoral counseling needs of Guardsmen even while serving their own civilian congregations, Wilson said.
"Part-time chaplaincies are almost full-time ministries," he said. "They are always on call for both their civilian and their military pastoral duties. It can be very stressful."
They also assist on all casualty notifications for military deaths. Holzhauser has been on five of those calls.
Chaplain shortages are most acute among Roman Catholic priests, Dolinger said. According to the military's religious demographics, 20 percent of all military personnel list a Roman Catholic religious affiliation. Only 7 percent of Army chaplains are Roman Catholic.
The active-duty Army needs 300 Catholic priests to adequately serve its members. It has 89, Dolinger said. "In the Army National Guard, we need 150 Catholic priests, and we have 36 of them."
That reflects an overall Catholic priest shortage in the civilian world. "We don't hold up our share," Holzhauser said.
All Roman Catholic priests serving in the military do so with the permission of their local bishops, and, he points out, "all bishops experience a shortage of priests in their own diocese."
Dolinger argues that congregations of all faiths should take a more active role in supplying chaplains to deployed servicemen. "If more churches saw that as a ministry to the military, we wouldn't have these shortages," he said. "As one man said to me the other day, 'Of course we're short of priests all over, but shouldn't we be short here at home, rather than short our sons and daughters who are serving over there?"
Holzhauser said daily Mass at a rotating list of 28 locations in Afghanistan. He usually traveled by air, because helicopters were safer than ground travel. Continuing to meet the religious and emotional needs of servicemen with sufficient chaplains of all faiths is imperative, he said.
"Because we're in the fifth year of a global war on terror, and because we continue to send and to bring back people from that war, those soldiers and their families are both stressed in every aspect of their lives because of that. They need our support," he said.
Wilson, who deployed to Iraq for one year with a 370-member Guard unit, agrees.
The recruitment of more military chaplains is "absolutely vital" in a state where Guard personnel are spread over a large geographic area. Wilson often speaks at churches where people ask what they can do to support deployed troops and their families.
"If we have the mindset to send a care package to a soldier overseas, what if a church would send a spiritual care package in the form of a chaplain -- a man or woman who loves the Lord. That's a great gift that a church can give to the men and women in the military."
Too often, Dolinger said, National Guard and reservist chaplains who serve long deployments are often the least protected from work issues in the civilian world because of church-state separation issues.
"So often, pastors are at the greatest risk of unemployment when they return from long deployments because they don't have a guarantee to get their church back when they return," he said. "We really need the support of congregations to let their pastors go."
That's what Realis Community Church in Rapid City did from May through September of 2006, when Allegre, its senior pastor, served as a chaplain at Balad Air Base in Iraq. Instead of pastoring his Christian Missionary Alliance congregation of 100 people in Rapid City, he spent six months providing counseling, Bible study and worship services to airmen and Army troops at Balad.
"I wanted to provide ministry to troops in harm's way. I was honored to do it," Allegre said. "My congregation was great about it. They were very supportive."
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