Military Chaplain

CAPPELLANO MILITARE. -

I. GENERALITIES

For the notion of the military chaplain, one should refer to the notion of the personal parish priest. Canon law in fact determines the spiritual jurisdiction of the parish priest over the faithful not only in relation to the territory in which the faithful have their domicile or residence, but also (albeit exceptionally) in relation to the status of the persons, depending on whether they belong to a particular family, a particular class, or a particular social order, or finally through the concurrence of both criteria, the local and the personal (cf. also CIC, can. 216 § 4).

The military chaplain may therefore be defined as a parish priest (parochus militum, missionarius exercitus is the designation often used in the texts), whose spiritual jurisdiction over the faithful is established by their belonging to a clearly defined class: the military.

But the jurisdiction of the military chaplain is not always limited to persons properly belonging to the military (soldiers, non-commissioned officers, and officers of any of the State’s armed forces): it sometimes extends to personnel known as assimilated to military personnel and also to the families of military personnel themselves; cf., for example, the decree of the S. Congregation of the Council of 8 Dec. 1939 (AAS, 31 [1939], p. 710, and Concordat with Poland, art. 7).

The reasons why, at all times, it has been deemed necessary or expedient to assign certain priests the specific task of providing assistance to military personnel are self-evident. Belonging to the military very often—in wartime especially—creates serious difficulties for the faithful in having recourse, for their spiritual needs, to the territorial ecclesiastical hierarchies: hence the institution of military chaplains. Without resorting to very remote historical precedents, it is sufficient to recall the priests who followed the legions of the Emperor Constantine, those who accompanied the municipal militias into combat, the spiritual assistance to the troops itself provided through the work of the glorious military religious orders, and finally, in a period much closer to our own, the chaplains of the Sardinian army and the military chaplains of the Spanish, Austrian, Neapolitan, and other armies.

II. ATTRIBUTIONS OF THE MILITARY CHAPLAIN

Under the title de parochis, can. 451 § 3 of the CIC considers the figure

of the military chaplain after having dealt in the preceding paragraphs with the parish priest and persons equivalent to him. With regard to the military chaplain it provides: «circa militum cappellanos sive maiores sive minores, standum peculiaribus Sanctae Sedis praescriptis».

This is sufficient to show us that, although it is permissible to define the military chaplain as a personal parish priest, it is nevertheless impossible to refer purely and simply to the general principles; rather, recourse must be had to the special law established by the apostolic provisions concerning spiritual assistance to the troops.

These provisions vary according to the relations existing between the Holy See and the States, but in any event they can be classified under three categories: a) the assignment of priests to provide assistance to military personnel, with the normal subjection to the exclusive authority of the Ordinary of the place remaining in force; b) the establishment of a senior chaplain (military vicar), to whom more or less extensive faculties are temporarily conferred, including that of subdelegating them to other priests; c) the establishment of an autonomous hierarchical order, in which military chaplains and the faithful entrusted to their spiritual care are subjected to their own Ordinary (Military Ordinary), who exercises his episcopal jurisdiction iure proprio, albeit cumulatively with that of the diocesan Ordinaries and, in relation to the latter, with precedence in places assigned to military personnel (barracks, airports, arsenals, schools, military hospitals, etc.), as declared by the decree of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation of 13 Apr. 1940 concerning the jurisdiction of the Military Ordinary in Italy (AAS, 32 [1940], p. 280). It is easy at once to grasp the difference between the first and the other two types of organization: in the first, the military chaplain exercises his spiritual jurisdiction within the territorial limits of the diocese; in the other two types of organization, he exercises it independently of any territorial relationship.

As a general principle it may be established that, whenever there is no particular apostolic norm providing otherwise, military chaplains depend upon the Ordinary of the place. Thus, for example, in conflicts of competence arising between bishops and senior royal chaplains of the kingdoms of Spain, Austria, and Naples, the Sacred Congregations always decided that only the Ordinary of the place had the authority to appoint military chaplains and the right to grant them the appropriate faculties for the performance of their functions. Nor, on the other hand, does the mere appointment of a priest with supervisory functions over military chaplains—as, for example, the appointment of the two inspectors, one for the priests and clerics serving in the army and the other for those serving in the French navy, made by the decrees of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation of 19 Nov. 1917 and 30 Apr. 1918 (AAS, 9 [1917], p. 566, 10 [1918], p. 238)—serve to exempt him from episcopal jurisdiction.

The military vicar or senior chaplain, in order to exercise his jurisdiction independently of the Ordinary of the place, must be furnished with the appropriate faculties by the Holy See. This occurred at the beginning of the last world conflict, when, by decree of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation of 8 Dec. 1939 (cited above), the faculties listed therein were expressly conferred upon senior chaplains or military vicars, limited to the duration of the war, to be customarily subdelegated to military chaplains or to other secular and regular priests serving in the armed forces. This system was instituted in all nations and regions at war or in a state of mobilization, except, of course, those provided with a military ordinariate.

The figure of the military vicar, even when invested with episcopal dignity (field bishop), must therefore be clearly distinguished from that of the Military Ordinary; and the principal distinguishing feature lies precisely in the jurisdiction which the former exercises by delegation and the latter iure proprio. Connected with this is the temporary nature of the former’s jurisdiction as opposed to the stability of the latter’s.

With regard to the military chaplain, the status of personal parish priest and the consequent properly parochial competences must certainly be recognized in the chaplain subject to the jurisdiction of the Military Ordinary, whereas they should be excluded in the priest who exercises his ministry by virtue of faculties subdelegated to him by the military vicar. Moreover, the military chaplain who enjoys parochial competences does not enjoy them in relation to all military personnel, but only in relation to the military personnel belonging to that unit or those units to whose spiritual care he is specifically assigned; this has recently been specified in Italy by a special decree of the Military Ordinary.

Spiritual assistance to military personnel has often been regulated by concordats, as, for example, in Spain, Austria, Lithuania, Germany, and Poland. The Concordat with Poland (10 Feb. 1925) expressly establishes (art. 7) that military chaplains have, with regard to the faithful subject to them, the rights of a parish priest, and that they exercise the functions of their ministry under the jurisdiction of a bishop (écéque d'armée), who has the right to choose them.

III. THE MILITARY CHAPLAIN IN ITALY

With regard to Italy, the system in force at the time of the First World War was undoubtedly that of the military vicar, whose office was established, within the framework of the state order, by Legislative Decree of 27 June 1915, no. 1022, and abolished by Royal Decree of 29 October 1922, no. 1552. The latter also abolished the military chaplains, except for some retained for the navy, for the collection of the remains of those fallen in the war, and for the arrangement of war cemeteries. These represented, so to speak, the germ that sustained the organization’s life until the establishment of the military ordinariate, which was canonically erected by decree of the S. Congregazione Concistoriale of 6 March 1925 and recognized by the Italian State by Law of 11 March 1926, no. 417.

The Concordat with Italy (11 February 1929) found this situation and accepted it, regulating it in Articles 13, 14, and 15. These were followed by Law of 27 May 1929, no. 848, containing the provisions concerning appointments to ecclesiastical offices and benefices (Art. 3), Royal Decree of 25 November 1929, no. 2184, and finally Law of 16 January 1936, no. 77, together with its implementing regulation contained in Royal Decree of 10 February 1936, no. 474. From this body of provisions and from other supplementary measures emerges the special structure given in Italy to the “service of spiritual assistance within the armed forces” (Art. 1 of the Law of 16 January 1936). The Military Ordinary, whose jurisdiction extends to the army, navy, air force, financial police, police forces, prison wardens, fire brigade, military personnel of the C. R. I. and the S. M. O. M., as well as to the male and female religious personnel assigned to military hospitals, bears archiepiscopal dignity (Art. 13, paragraph 3 of the Concordat) and presides over the Chapter of the church of the Pantheon in Rome (Art. 15). His appointment, together with that of his immediate assistants (the vicar general and inspectors), is made, upon designation by the S. Sede, by decree of the President of the Republic, proposed by the President of the Council of Ministers in agreement with the Minister of the Interior. The appointment of chaplains is likewise made by decree of the President of the Republic, but upon the proposal of the competent minister and the designation of the Military Ordinary.

The requirements for the appointment of secular and regular priests to the office of military chaplain are Italian citizenship, enjoyment of political rights, and an age below forty. Preference is given to those who have served in wartime or have earned military distinctions (Art. 6 of the Law of 16 January 1936).

The same law provides (Arts. 8 and 9) for the assimilation of rank—respectively, of the Military Ordinary to the rank of divisional general, of the vicar general to that of brigadier general, of the inspectors to that of lieutenant colonel, and finally of head chaplains and chaplains to the ranks of captain and lieutenant—as well as for the remuneration of the ecclesiastical personnel assigned to the assistance of the armed forces and (Art. 17) subjection to military criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction, limited to cases of total or partial mobilization or embarkation, and always subject to the prior opinion of the Ordinary.