[National Catholic Register] portal reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed the U.S. Army’s “Chief of Chaplains,” Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., during Holy Week, alongside two other generals, as the U.S. engages in war with Iran. The reason for the removal is officially unstated. Concurrently, the Pentagon held Protestant services on Good Friday but provided no Catholic liturgy, citing the absence of its assigned priest. These actions occur within Hegseth’s declared reform of the military chaplaincy, which previously scrapped an “Army Spiritual Fitness Guide” for promoting “secular humanism.” Archbishop Timothy Broglio (validly ordained pre-1968) had supported scrapping the guide, condemning reductions of the chaplaincy to “social work or cheerleading.” The article presents these events as administrative and policy matters, utterly omitting the supernatural dimension of the chaplain’s office and the gravitas of Holy Week. This silence is not neutrality but a damning symptom of the conciliar sect’s apostasy, where the reign of Christ the King is systematically excluded from public life, replaced by a naturalistic, utilitarian approach to “spirituality.”
Christless Chaplaincy: The Pentagon’s Holy Week Apostasy
Reduction of the Chaplain’s Office to Naturalistic Humanism
The article describes Defense Secretary Hegseth’s stated intention to treat chaplains as “chaplains, not emotional support officers,” and Archbishop Broglio’s desire to return the chaplaincy to “religious services, religious instruction, and advising the commanders.” While phrased as a correction, this framework remains imprisoned within a naturalistic and bureaucratic conception of the chaplaincy. It speaks of “religious services” and “instruction” without a single reference to the supernatural end of the chaplain’s mission: the salvation of souls through the administration of the sacraments and the defense of Catholic doctrine. This is the language of the “conciliar sect,” which has replaced the *salus animarum*—the supreme law of the Church—with the management of “spiritual fitness” and morale.
Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas, on the feast of Christ the King, leaves no room for such ambiguity: the Kingdom of Christ “encompasses all men” and “all is subject to His will.” The State and its institutions, including the military, are bound to publicly honor and obey Christ. A chaplaincy that does not explicitly and exclusively promote the reign of Christ the King, His law, and His sacraments is a contradiction in terms. The very idea that a “chaplain” could serve a pluralistic, secular state apparatus without proclaiming the exclusive rights of Christ is a direct repudiation of Quas Primas and the Syllabus of Errors. Pius IX condemned the error that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55). The modern military chaplaincy, as practiced in the post-conciliar world, operates precisely on this condemned principle of separation, treating religion as a private, optional resource for individuals rather than as the public truth to which all authority must submit.
The Omission of Catholic Worship During Holy Week: A Public Act of Apostasy
The factual core of the scandal is the Pentagon’s failure to offer a Catholic Good Friday service. The official explanation—that the assigned priest was “not in town”—is an insult to intelligence and a grave dereliction. As the Catholic Military Apostolate board noted, if a service is “normally offered” and no alternative provision was made, this is “disappointing.” This mild phrasing masks a profound evil: the deliberate or negligent omission of the solemn liturgical commemoration of the Passion of Our Lord during the most sacred days of the year within the headquarters of the world’s most powerful military.
This omission is not a logistical failure; it is a theological statement. It reflects the “silence about supernatural matters” that is the “gravest accusation” against Modernism. Where is the outcry for the reparation due to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, offended by this neglect? Where is the recognition that the state, by failing to provide for the public worship of the true God during Holy Week, commits a species of public sacrilege? The Syllabus of Errors, condemning the notion that “the civil authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government” (Error 44), also implicitly condemns a state that fails in its duty to facilitate and protect the public exercise of the true religion. The Pentagon’s action (or inaction) is the logical fruit of Error 77: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State.” The state now practices a practical indifferentism, where the “religion” of the majority or the most convenient is catered to, while the true faith is marginalized when inconvenient.
The Theological Bankruptcy of “Spiritual Fitness”
Hegseth’s cancellation of the “Army Spiritual Fitness Guide” for promoting “secular humanism” is presented as a victory. Yet, the critique itself is framed in the language of utility: the guide was rejected because it referenced God “only once” and “never referenced virtue.” This is a naturalistic, philosophical critique, not a theological one. The guide was evil not merely because it was “secular” or lacked the word “virtue,” but because it promoted a pseudo-religion of human potential divorced from grace, the sacraments, and the exclusive sovereignty of Christ. The rejection of the guide, however, does not automatically restore a Catholic chaplaincy. Hegseth’s stated goal is to make chaplains “chaplains” again, a term now emptied of its Catholic substance and applicable to any ordained minister of any faith.
This is the essence of the conciliar revolution: the replacement of supernatural religion with a generic, natural “spirituality.” St. Pius X, in his condemnation of Modernism (Lamentabili sane exitu), identified this error: “The belief that God is the true Author of Holy Scripture is excessive naivety or ignorance” (Proposition 9) and “Divine inspiration does not extend to the whole of Holy Scripture” (Proposition 11). The “spiritual fitness” paradigm is the practical outworking of such errors, reducing the divine to a motivational tool. A truly Catholic chaplaincy would not merely “advise commanders” but would remind them, as Pius XI taught, that “all power in heaven and on earth is given to Christ the Lord,” and therefore “there is no power in us that is exempt from this reign.” The commander’s duty is to obey Christ’s law first. The chaplain’s primary duty is to form the souls of the troops in the Catholic faith, to administer the sacraments (especially Penance and the Eucharist), and to be a sign of contradiction against the world, the flesh, and the devil—not a “cheerleader” for a secular military mission.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Sect’s Systemic Apostasy
These events are not isolated administrative quirks. They are the inevitable consequences of the apostasy that has gripped the structures occupying the Vatican since the death of Pius XII. The article quotes Archbishop Broglio, a hierarch of the post-conciliar “Archdiocese for the Military Services.” His participation in this system, while he may be validly ordained, makes him complicit in the “abomination of desolation.” He operates within a structure that, since Vatican II, has embraced religious liberty (condemned by Pius IX in Errors 15-17) and ecumenism, which logically leads to the dilution of Catholic identity in institutions like the military chaplaincy. His call to return to “religious services” is a call to a pre-1962 model, but it is fatally compromised by his continued recognition of the conciliar “popes” and his failure to denounce the entire system as heretical.
The removal of a “Chief of Chaplains” during Holy Week is a profound symbol. It demonstrates that even the most sacred times of the liturgical year are irrelevant to the managers of the “Department of War.” The state, having been secularized, functions as if Christ were not its King. This is the direct implementation of the errors condemned by Pius IX: “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Error 39). The Pentagon acts as if its authority is autonomous, its spiritual needs catered to by a multifaith “chaplaincy” that is a practical denial of the Catholic Church’s exclusive claim to truth.
The “reform” promised by Hegseth, without a return to the exclusive, militant Catholic chaplaincy that existed before the rot of Vatican II, is a mere rearrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic. It seeks to make the chaplaincy more “effective” for the state’s purposes, not more obedient to Christ the King. The true Catholic position, as taught by the Popes and Doctors of the Church, is that the State has a *duty* to recognize the Catholic religion as the sole religion of the State and to facilitate its public exercise, especially in its armed forces. Any other model is a concession to the “secularism” or “laicism” that Pius XI in Quas Primas identified as the “plague that poisons human society.”
Conclusion: The Only Remedy is the Public Reign of Christ
The removal of Maj. Gen. Green and the omission of the Catholic Good Friday service are not primarily about personnel or scheduling. They are stark revelations of the ontological status of the modern state: a realm from which Christ is formally excluded. The chaplaincy, as currently constituted, is a relic of a dying Christendom, now repurposed as a tool for managing the “spiritual” dimension of a godless military machine. The only remedy, as defined by Catholic doctrine before the watershed of 1958, is the social reign of Christ the King, as Pius XI proclaimed. This means a state that recognizes the Catholic Church as the perfect society, grants it full freedom, and subjects its laws and military to the explicit and public authority of Christ and His Church. Until this is restored, every “reform” will be a superficial patch on the gaping wound of apostasy, and every Holy Week will see the sacred rites of the Passion neglected in the very seats of worldly power.
Source:
Defense Secretary Hegseth Removes Top Army Chaplain Amid Iran War, Chaplaincy Reform (ncregister.com)
Date: 06.04.2026