The Catholic Register has an interesting piece highlighting the discussion here just last week, in which MRFF researcher Chris Rodda and Catholic League Bill Donohue both seemed to claim to represent Catholics in the US military.  The Register indicates the Catholic Military Diocese’s press release supporting the religious freedom amendments was due, in part, to a need to remind people that the Catholic Church is the representative of Catholics in the US military:

Mikey Weinstein…argue[s] that the real threat to the free exercise of religion in the military comes from aggressive evangelical groups that have targeted Catholic service members…  He has presented himself as the defender of…Catholic…soldiers beseiged by “right-wing” Christian fundamentalists.

On July 17, the Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS) stepped into the fray, issuing a statement by AMS general counsel John Schlageter that identified the AMS as the “official voice of Catholics in the military.”

While the article is broadly written, it specifically calls out the claims only of Michael Weinstein and Chris Rodda; it mentions Bill Donohue only as the target of Rodda’s rebuttal of who was “really” the voice of Catholics in the military.  The Archdiocese made a point of specifically undercutting Rodda’s implication:

[General counsel John Schlageter’s] office serves as the principal recipient of phone calls and letters from Catholic service members who believe their religious freedoms have been violated. The AMS is also the primary advocate for military Catholics on Capitol Hill.

Tellingly, the Register managed see through Chris Rodda’s claims [emphasis added]:

Rodda insisted the [MRFF] had been contacted by more than 8,000 Catholics, though specifics, such as dates and issues of concern, were not provided.

(To be fair, Rodda did include two letters in her blog.  The first was from a Catholic who wasn’t even in the military.  The second was from a “raised Catholic” Air Force FAC, who retired 30 years ago and undermined Rodda’s own argument by calling anti-Catholic bias “trivial.”)

As has been said here many times before, Rodda doesn’t provide specifics.  She often claims to have the smoking gun on persecution by Christians in the US military, only to later say she’s ‘not at liberty’ to provide any actual proof of her accusation.  In fact, in cases where details of her mysterious claims were public (without her knowledge), it turned out she wasn’t being entirely truthful — and not just once.  Or twice.  Or three times.  As opposed to the philosophy that the truth can stand on its own, it seems the MRFF consistently feels the need to embellish the facts, which is why their grandiose claims should never be taken at face value.

Back to the issue at hand, the Register drives the point home to both Weinstein and Donohue,

“Any other individual or group that claims to be charged with protecting the religious-freedom rights of Catholics in the military, no matter how well-intentioned, is acting independently and is not the official voice of Catholics in the military,” the AMS statement concluded.

The article also wryly notes that a web search for “religious freedom in the military” brings up a page from Weinstein’s “charity” — but not the one you might expect from a “religious freedom” group.

The first result is his fundraising page.

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