Who could have seen this coming during Holy Week?

Even I, a cynic of the first order, could not have imagined that even the Biden Administration would have kicked Catholic priests out of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Yes, they actually did kick the priests out, including sending a cease and desist order to Holy Name College, the order of priests who had been providing pastoral care to those at Walter Reed.

WASHINGTON, DC – Walter Reed National Military Medical Center has issued a “cease and desist order” to Holy Name College, a community of Franciscan Catholic priests and brothers, who have provided pastoral care to service members and veterans at Walter Reed for nearly two decades.

The government’s cease and desist order directed the Catholic priests to cease any religious services at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. This order was issued as Catholics entered Holy Week, the most sacred of days in the Christian faith, in which they participate in liturgies remembering Jesus’ passion, and leading the Church to celebrate the Resurrection on Easter morning.

The Franciscans’ contract for Catholic Pastoral Care was terminated on March 31, 2023, and awarded to a secular defense contracting firm that cannot fulfill the statement of work in the contract. As a result, adequate pastoral care is not available for service members and veterans in the United States’ largest Defense Health Agency medical center either during Holy Week or beyond. There is one Catholic Army chaplain assigned to Walter Reed Medical Center, but he is in the process of separating from the Army.

The cease and desist order is a nice touch, just in case you didn’t quite get the fact that the Biden Administration is spitting in the face of all Catholics during Holy Week.

General Milley had Walter Reed Military Hospital send a cease and desist order to the Catholic Church providing pastoral care to service members during holy week. A secular defense contractor is being paid to counsel troops instead. https://t.co/vqFXA11ZRH pic.twitter.com/3V17H3BjA8

— @amuse (@amuse) April 8, 2023

I wish I could say that this is incomprehensible, but of course, it isn’t. Not a bit.

It really is part of a war being engaged in by the Biden Administration against people of the Catholic faith. Catholicism is less “flexible” in its theology than Protestantism–not in the sense that there aren’t Protestants with more orthodox theological views, but rather in the sense that you can find a Protestant minister who is ordained yet holds all the views required by the alphabet ideology. Even if most protestants might recoil at the “Drag is Holy” minister, the military can point to his being ordained and call it good.

Catholics? Not so much, because at the end of the day the right to perform pastoral care is conferred by the Church itself. There is a hierarchy that stretches from the smallest parish to Rome itself.

His Excellency, the Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio, J.C.D., Archbishop for the Military Services, condemned the move as an encroachment on the First Amendment guarantee of the Free Exercise of Religion. Archbishop Broglio said:  “It is incomprehensible that essential pastoral care is taken away from the sick and the aged when it was so readily available.  This is a classic case where the adage ‘if it is not broken, do not fix it’ applies.  I fear that giving a contract to the lowest bidder overlooked the fact that the bidder cannot provide the necessary service.  I earnestly hope that this disdain for the sick will be remedied at once and their First Amendment rights will be respected.”

Ms. Elizabeth A. Tomlin, Esq., General Counsel of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS), has reached out to the contracting officers at Walter Reed numerous times throughout Holy Week asking for the Franciscans’ Catholic ministry to be reinstated at least through Easter. Walter Reed National Military Medical Center has not responded to these requests from the Archdiocese.

Most people rightly don’t want to believe that the people who run our major institutions are engaged in an evil campaign against the norms of our society, but at some point, one has to admit that the evidence can be read no other way.

How else to explain the military’s refusal to even allow Catholic priests into Walter Reed during Holy Week? Something like this simply has to be a calculated move. When the lawyer for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA begs to have priests admitted to the hospital and is ignored there is no benign explanation for the calculated offense.

And don’t forget, Walter Reed is a hospital. It is a place where the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, otherwise known as the Last Rites or Anointing of the Sick must be able to be given. Kicking priests out of Walter Reed is potentially denying Catholics a sacrament and not “just” the ability to attend Mass or be provided comfort by a priest.

Walter Reed does retain the services of one Catholic priest. However, the priests of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, US are apparently not welcome.

Until these past few months, I have never, ever used the word “demonic” to describe a person’s behavior. But now the word seems appropriate to describe any given act by the Biden Administration.

Cease and desist. They actually issued a cease and desist order to priests engaged in the pastoral care of ill hospital patients.

How else would you describe that? Demonic.