The vocations crisis is sending ripples across all kinds of ministries — including military chaplaincy. Now the National Guard is feeling the effects:

When patriotism inspired the Rev. Jerry Fehn a decade ago to serve soldiers in combat zones abroad, the 45-year-old was afraid he had waited too long.

He needn’t have worried. The National Guard, wrestling with a chronic shortage of priests, cleared the roadblocks that might have kept Fehn out.

“They didn’t really want to take someone over 40,” Fehn said. “But because there’s such a shortage of Catholic priests in the military, they said they would grant me a waiver if I could pass the physical.”

Fehn went on to serve in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. Meanwhile, the guard has made significant strides in adding chaplains to its ranks, though many units still struggle to recruit for a position seen as crucial to morale. About 200 positions are open in the Army National Guard and 45 in the Air National Guard.

“It makes it harder to provide religious support,” said Chaplain Samuel J.T. Boone, commandant of the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School at Fort Jackson, S.C. “There are some people who we can’t provide their religious rites and sacraments as we can back here in the states.”

Chaplains serve as more than ministers for guardsmen in harm’s way. They are confidants, counselors and arbitrators. In Iraq and Afghanistan, unit commanders have used chaplains to communicate with local leaders and clergy. Many chaplains are embedded with units and travel through war zones, putting them within arm’s reach of soldiers.

The chaplain shortage contrasts with general Guard recruiting, which is at capacity. And clergy ranks in full-time military branches remain full.

The guard’s shortfall stems primarily from a lack of Roman Catholic priests willing to volunteer. Catholic dioceses that face a national shortage of priests may find it difficult to replace chaplains — even for one weekend a month.

“The priest has those responsibilities on weekends, and two weeks of training,” Fehn said. “That impacts the priest’s ability to be with the congregation on weekends for weddings and funerals. And then that priest might be gone for deployment.”

The Army National Guard has just six rabbis and no imams for its 362,000 guardsmen. Clergy from smaller Christian denominations and other faiths also are needed.

Exactly how many clergy are deemed enough per guard unit varies. The Army National Guard’s goal is a chaplain for every battalion, which range from 500 to 700 soldiers. The goal for Air National Guard units is three chaplains and three chaplain assistants per wing; wings generally have about 1,000 members.

Guard units are responsible for their own recruiting, and shortages are worse in some regions. Units in the more Protestant South and Midwest generally fare better, while the Mountain West states and the more Catholic Northeast struggle, according to personnel chaplains for both the Army and Air National Guards.

There’s more about this at the link.

UPDATE: After one or two people in the comments section discussed deacons being unable to serve as military chaplains, a deacon wrote in with the following clarification:

In your blog, you mentioned the issue of the military not having deacons is based upon the sacramental need for reconciliation and last rites. That explanation is accurate enough but very superficial and may make sense to someone who has not been in uniformed service. You see, most military chaplains are not Roman Catholic and obviously Protestant clergy do not claim those faculties either.The real issue is ordained Roman Catholic Deacons as uniformed chaplains. That will take the direct involvement of the American Catholic hierarchy. It is possible but not without their support

Deacons can and are used across the military services as “contract civilian chaplains” on a regular basis. In fact, if you log on to the Military Archdiocese, and check their staff page, you will even find a permanently ordained deacon listed on their top staff. I did connect with him once and he assured me that there are now about 50 permanently ordained deacons accredited with their office. Since the Military Archdiocese does not have ordination faculties, they have to beg/borrow/steal clergy (priests and deacons) from other dioceses — usually on a temporary basis. Like any priest, that transfer has to have the approval of the deacon’s home ordinary. None of the fifty permanently ordained deacons, however, are in the uniformed service — all are “contract civilian chaplains.” I know of two:

There is a Archdiocese of Cincinnati deacon who is the paid Pastoral Associate in Marriage and Family Life for the Catholic Chapels at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio

There is also a “Senior Status” deacon of the Diocese of Toledo in Ohio — what we call a “snow-bird deacon” — serving as a Pastoral Associate at Naval Air Station Pensacola.