{"id":27523,"date":"2014-01-06T08:59:48","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T11:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=27523"},"modified":"2016-10-01T23:50:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T02:50:01","slug":"chaplain-ray-leonard-continues-lawsuit-over-religious-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/06\/chaplain-ray-leonard-continues-lawsuit-over-religious-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaplain Ray Leonard Continues Lawsuit over Religious Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Mueller of the Star-Ledger has an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nj.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2013\/11\/the_nj_priest_who_faced_down_the_federal_government_--_and_won.html\">interesting piece on the Rev Ray Leonard<\/a> &#8212; the contract Catholic priest and military chaplain who <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/15\/catholic-chaplain-sues-us-military-for-right-to-minister\/\">sued for access to his congregation<\/a> during the government &#8220;shutdown.&#8221; It turns out Chaplain Leonard served for 10 years as a priest in China:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>During a decade spent teaching and helping the needy in some of China\u2019s most impoverished and oppressed regions, the New Jersey priest learned what it was like to live in a land without religious freedom.<\/p>\n<p>It kindled a greater appreciation for his liberties at home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That may have played a role in how he reacted to the US government forbidding him from serving his parish:\u00a0 <!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Which is why Leonard, 51, bristled at the U.S. government when it told him he couldn\u2019t hold services at a Georgia naval base during last month\u2019s government shutdown.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chaplain Leonard filed a lawsuit with the help of the Thomas More Law Center. In response to the suit, the Department of Justice reversed the DoD&#8217;s prior <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/17\/dod-reverses-policy-furloughing-contract-chaplains\/\">decision that chaplains were &#8220;non-essential.&#8221;<\/a> Chaplain Leonard intends to continue the lawsuit to prevent it from happening again.<\/p>\n<p>The article details Chaplain Leonard&#8217;s fascinating experience in China.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-layout=\"standard\" data-action=\"like\" data-size=\"small\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-share=\"true\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Mueller of the Star-Ledger has an interesting piece on the Rev Ray Leonard &#8212; the contract Catholic priest and military chaplain who sued for access to his congregation during the government &#8220;shutdown.&#8221; It turns out Chaplain Leonard served for 10 years as a priest in China: During a decade spent teaching and helping the needy in some of China\u2019s [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[54,38,5284,908,19,4550,2,4328,10,171,1748],"class_list":["post-27523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-catholic","tag-chapel","tag-chaplain","tag-china","tag-government","tag-mark-mueller","tag-military","tag-ray-leonard","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-thomas-more"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}