ACLJ Files Urgent FOIA Demand After Christian Clergy Blocked From Ministering to Soldiers at Walter Reed at Easter, Replaced by Secular, For-Profit Service Provider

For many wounded U.S. service members, their faith is what sustains them and gives them the strength to persevere through the pain and recovery from their injuries. But now, the Christian faith of our soldiers is being attacked by officials within their own government.

The ACLJ just took action to expose this disgusting shadow attack against Christian U.S. servicemen and servicewomen when they need their faith the most.

Recently, we told you how, just two days before the start of Holy Week, the historic Walter Reed National Military Medical Center issued a cease-and-desist order against a Catholic group that had been ministering to wounded Christian service members, as well as their families and any hospital staff who wished, for over two decades.

As we reported at the time:

On the Friday before Palm Sunday, Franciscans from nearby Holy Name College were told they were no longer welcome on the medical campus; their contract with the facility had expired.  Further, there was no plan in place to provide mass or to hear confessions.  The one Catholic army chaplain was about to retire, and there was no way he could perform all the religious ministrations that are part of Holy Week anyway.

It's unthinkable. Right at Easter, a cease-and-desist letter was sent to stop the priests from providing care to patients – care they’d provided for decades without incident – as if they were committing some criminal offense.

And adding insult to injury, Walter Reed assigned the direction of its “religious services” to a secular, FOR-PROFIT business called Mack Global. As the company’s website states, its business is “providing professional services and products to U.S. military, government agencies, and private companies.”

So rather than entrusting the spiritual care of our wounded troops to members of the clergy who’ve devoted their lives to the service of believers, Walter Reed is bidding religious services out to secular contractors? It’s a slap in the face of our brave soldiers and their loved ones.

The ACLJ is committed to defending the religious freedoms of our courageous heroes who put their lives on the line to defend our freedoms all around the world. That’s why we just filed an URGENT Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request against the U.S. Defense Health Agency (DHA) demanding all records pertaining to not renewing the Franciscans’ contract to Walter Reed patients, family members, and staff, and instead installing a secular, for-profit company.

As we said in our FOIA, the Franciscans “have provided pastoral care (the Catholic term for providing religious services) to patients and families at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) for twenty years.”

For their contract to be abruptly canceled despite the years of service and the relationships built with our troops, without justification is reprehensible. It’s imperative that we uncover who made this decision at the expense of our soldiers and military personnel, who else was a part of it, and their true agenda in barring Christian ministers from the military hospital just days before one of the most sacred Christian holidays.

As we said before, the removal of the clergy from the military hospital is unconscionable on multiple levels, not the least of which is the critical importance of the free exercise of religion, which is not only a constitutional principle but also foundational to our men and women in uniform.

No one is forcing religious beliefs on anyone; they’re providing spiritual help to those who requested the services. This is another unprovoked attack by disgruntled atheists and the radical Left, empowered by the Biden Administration, to wage  war on religious freedom. They want to strip us of all our most sacred beliefs, and they’re starting with our injured and recuperating troops. It’s outrageous.

It is our sworn duty to defend our bold U.S. servicemen and servicewomen, as so many of them depend on prayer and religious services for the strength they need to fight their way back to health. We’re demanding answers, and if the Biden Administration doesn’t comply, we’ll go to court. We owe this and more to our brave men and women in uniform.