{"id":25140,"date":"2013-08-28T00:30:34","date_gmt":"2013-08-28T03:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=25140"},"modified":"2016-11-26T00:58:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-26T03:58:59","slug":"chaplain-highlights-shortage-of-catholic-priests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/28\/chaplain-highlights-shortage-of-catholic-priests\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaplain Highlights Shortage of Catholic Priests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chaplain (Capt) Joel Panzer, a Catholic priest who has served in the US Army for the past five years, recently made a push with fellow Catholic leaders to encourage priests to become military chaplains<\/a>:<\/p>\n

By doing so, he hopes to reverse a rising shortage of priests in the military.<\/p>\n

About a quarter of the soldiers in the Army are Catholic, but only about 6% of the Army’s chaplains are Catholic priests.<\/p>\n

All military branches combined have just 239 Catholic priests on active duty, said a spokesman for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, which oversees Catholic military chaplains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Discussions of the Catholic chaplain shortage have been ongoing for years<\/a>.\u00a0 For his part, Chaplain Panzer noted his experience was “eye-opening:”<\/p>\n

It’s a calling that has taken now-Capt. Panzer to Iraq twice and transformed him from a parish priest into a kind of missionary. Most of his time these days is spent among people who don’t share his faith. And he said he’s loved almost every minute of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nicely done with the discreet qualifier: “almost<\/em> every minute…”<\/p>\n

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