Support Free Exercise of Catholic Faith in the U.S. Military

Last updated on: November 8, 2025 at 3:09 pm by William Hemsworth

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Support Free Exercise of Catholic Faith in the U.S. Military 2025-11-08T15:09:50-07:00 William Hemsworth

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – American Catholics nationwide will have an opportunity this weekend to offer charitable support for pastoral care to the faithful in the United States Military, the nation’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers, and those working for the U.S. government in other countries. Most U.S. parishes will take up the Triennial National Collection for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS), at Sunday Masses the weekend of Nov. 8-9, 2025.

AMS faithful serving on military installations will have their own opportunity to participate with a suggested designated offering to be taken the same weekend, or by making an individual donation.

In an online video message, His Excellency, the Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio, J.C.D., Archbishop for the Military Services, counsels the faithful: “Your generous gift could make all the difference in the world. I humbly beseech you, please do not make the men and women who defend our freedoms, including the freedom to exercise our Catholic faith, give up that freedom for themselves and their families while protecting yours. Your gift for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, will provide for the spiritual needs not only of Catholics on active duty but also future military leaders at the four U.S. Military Academies, veterans battling disease and other long-term effects of war, and civilians serving our Nation in other countries. No amount is too large or too small. Give what you can. I am deeply grateful for your help.”

This year’s collection to support the AMS mission—“Serving Those Who Serve”—is the fifth of its kind since the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved the collection in 2012 for the Sunday before Veterans Day every third year beginning in 2013.

The AMS was erected by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1985 to provide the Catholic Church’s full range of ecclesiastical support, pastoral care, and liturgical celebration to Catholics in the U.S. Armed Forces; the nation’s 153 VA medical centers spread throughout the fifty states, Puerto Rico, and Guam; federal civilian jobs beyond U.S. borders; and the families of these populations. All told, 1.8 million American Catholics worldwide depend on this global archdiocese and its endorsed chaplains, priests, deacons, and lay leaders for their spiritual well-being, religious practice, and free exercise of faith.

“Be aware that the AMS herself receives no funding from the Military or the Government,” Archbishop Broglio says in the video. “She is not entitled to a parish assessment or any share of Sunday collections. The AMS depends entirely on private giving for survival. The AMS receives no government or military funding and depends entirely on private giving to survive and thrive.”

Photo Courtesy of the Archdiocese for Military Services

The need for support is particularly urgent in the AMS Office of Vocations, which is working proactively to relieve a shortage of Catholic priests on active duty. The shortage is due to attrition: aging chaplains are reaching the military’s mandatory retirement age faster than they can be replaced. Over the past two decades, the roster of Catholic priests on active duty has declined from more than 400 to a few more than 200.

Currently, 25% of the active-duty U.S. military population of 1.32 million is Catholic, but Catholic priests make up only about 7% of the chaplain corps. Currently, 34 prospective priest/chaplains are enrolled in the Co-Sponsored Seminarian Program, a partnership set up in the mid-1980s between the AMS and cooperating dioceses and religious communities to encourage military commitments from candidates for the priesthood. The AMS pays half their tuition and other seminary expenses amounting to more than $5 million over the next five years alone.

That’s in addition to the AMS’s annual operating budget of more than $10 million, which covers, among other mission-critical expenses:

Global travel of AMS bishops and clergy staff; Archbishop Broglio and his five auxiliaries travel year-round to U.S. Military installations worldwide consulting with chaplains and lay leaders, celebrating Mass, and administering sacraments including baptism, confirmation, and penance.
Promotion of catechetical standards and indicators for children of military families in grades pre-K through 12: Forming Disciples for the New Evangelization: Archdiocesan Religion Curriculum Guide.
Online and on-site Catechetical Methodology courses and Catechist Certification programming.
Faith formation initiatives for youth and young adults that include spiritual discernment, leader trainings, retreats, and international conferences.
Team Saint Paul, an AMS apostolate for civilian Catholic young adults to accompany military peers on their journeys of faith.
Partnership with Life Teen to support Catholic youth and families in military settings.
Operation of the AMS website, mobile app, and social media, the principal means of communication between the AMS and those she serves.
Video production and televising of noteworthy events in the Archdiocese such as messages from the Archbishop, the annual Memorial Mass, training for ministry leaders, World Youth Day, the annual Chrism Mass, and more.
Centralized sacramental record keeping. Unlike territorial dioceses where records of sacraments are stored at the parish level, the AMS has no canonical parishes. Records are thus stored centrally at the Edwin Cardinal O’Brien Pastoral Center, the AMS headquarters in Washington, DC, where a full staff maintains a growing data base of more than three million records dating back to World War I.
Tribunal adjudication of marriage annulment applications and other issues of canon law.
Public advocacy for religious freedom and Catholic teaching.

For more information on the Triennial National Collection for the AMS, including a list of participating dioceses, go to milarch.org/nationalcollection. The next National Collection for the AMS is not scheduled until November 2028. To make a donation to the 2025 National Collection for the AMS, go to https://donate.milarch.org/page/110511/donate/1.

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