Catholics Wanted and Warned

The shortage of U.S. Army chaplains was described last week by Chief of Chaplains William R. Arnold as "about two months behind our procurement needs." He said the Army's needs are 3,028 Protestant, 959 Roman Catholic and 69 Jewish chaplains by year's end.

The shortage of Catholic chaplains was described in the St. Louis Register recently by Chaplain Robert J. Sherry of Fort McClellan, Ala. Wrote he: "We are more than 200 priests shy . . . and the number must be doubled before the end of the year if the goal of one chaplain for every 1,200 men is to be realized." He mentioned camps where "sometimes the Catholic boys do not see a priest for six weeks or two months and some have never seen a Catholic chaplain."

Stronger talk on the shortage came from Florida's Bishop Joseph Patrick Hurley, most out-&-out pre-Pearl Harbor interventionist in the U.S. hierarchy. He said the shortage had caused "the greatest leakage which the Church in America has suffered." He did not blame the priests, but accused some of his fellow Bishops in the North of "unwillingness . . . to disturb existing organizations; a persistent inability to face facts; a tendency . . . to engage in negative criticism rather than in constructive collaboration."

Protestant dissatisfaction over the chaplain shortage also got an airing. Dr. Harold John Ockenga, pastor of Boston's Park Street Church (Congregational), back from visiting Army camps in 36 states, said many had too few chaplains. The 37-year-old minister blamed the dearth of volunteers on "the pacifistic attitude and teaching of the Federal Council of Churches. . . . Thousands of young men now in the ministry have adopted this attitude."

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