Issued by the Catholic Center for Studies and Media - Jordan. Editor-in-chief Fr. Rif'at Bader - موقع أبونا abouna.org

Published on Monday, 12 November 2018
WWI:'The priests have been distinguished for their heroism'

By K.V. Turley/ ncregister.com :

How prayer and the aid of chaplains was vital in the trenches — and devotion was bolstered on the homefront, too.

“For fourteen hours I was at work yesterday — teaching Christ to lift His cross by numbers and how to adjust His crown. ... I inspected His feet that they should be worthy of the nails... with maps I make Him familiar with the topography of Golgotha.”

So wrote the First World War poet Wilfred Owen, using the language of priestly sacrifice as metaphor. The 100th anniversary of the Great War’s ending reminds us of the witness of Catholics at the front, especially Catholic military chaplains. In the mud and blood of that four-year “Golgotha,” however, there was also for many a moment of grace, as outlined in Stories of World War I: Faith in Action and Priests in Uniform: Catholic Military Chaplains in the First World War.

The French government had, only years earlier, enacted laws so severe that they forced some religious to seek refuge in Protestant England.

From the outbreak of war in 1914, throughout France, ordinances were passed, reversing many of the restrictions on priests and religious as the French government found itself desperate to enlist their services at the front, particularly in military hospitals.

By December 1914, only months after the outbreak of the war, The Times reported that 87 Catholic priests and 127 nuns had been awarded the French Légion d’Honneur for services rendered to French forces: “Everywhere the priests have been distinguished for their heroism, and their devotion to the patriotic cause is shared by many members of religious orders, both men and women.”

The Paris correspondent for The Times, however, went on to make an even more remarkable statement, namely, that the outbreak of war had seen a religious revival in France.

Other newspapers reported moving instances of the devotion of French military chaplains.

The Daily Chronicle of Oct. 31, 1914, reported the story of a Paris train station full of wounded soldiers, one of whom indicated to a nearby nurse that he needed “to confess very badly.” The nurse wondered if a priest could be found in all the noise and confusion around her. Suddenly another of the wounded who lay there spoke: “I am a priest; I can give him absolution. Carry me to him.”