Priests threatened with arrest if they minister to military during shutdown

In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.

“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”

According to its website, the Archdiocese for the Military Services “provides the Catholic Church’s full range of pastoral ministries and spiritual services to those in the United States Armed Forces.”

In his piece, Schlageter worries about this restriction as Sunday nears. “If the government shutdown continues through the weekend, there will be no Catholic priest to celebrate Mass this Sunday in the chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors,” he wrote.

Because of the lack of active-duty Catholic chaplains, the military relies on hiring civilian priests to serve as government service and contract ministers. Those civilian priests are not allowed on the bases during a shutdown, Schlageter wrote.

Via: Daily Caller

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BENGHAZI: Documents show Stevens worried about security threats, al-Qaeda

Across 166 pages of internal State Department documents – released today by a pair of Republican congressmen pressing the Obama administration for more answers on the Benghazi terrorist attack – slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and the security officers assigned to protect him repeatedly sounded alarms to their superiors in Washington about the intensifying lawlessness and violence in Eastern Libya, where Stevens ultimately died.
 
On September 11 – the day Stevens and three other Americans were killed – the ambassador signed a three-page cable, labeled “sensitive,” in which he noted “growing problems with security” in Benghazi and “growing frustration” on the part of local residents with Libyan police and security forces.  These forces the ambassador characterized as “too weak to keep the country secure.” 
 
In the document, Stevens also cited a meeting he had held two days earlier with local militia commanders.  These men boasted to Stevens of exercising “control” over the Libyan Armed Forces, and threatened that if the U.S.-backed candidate for prime minister were to prevail in Libya’s internal political jockeying, “they would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi.” 
 
Roughly a month earlier, Stevens had signed a two-page cable, also labeled “sensitive,” that he entitled “The Guns of August: Security in Eastern Libya.” Writing on August 8, the ambassador noted that in just a few months’ time, “Benghazi has moved from trepidation to euphoria and back as a series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape…The individual incidents have been organized,” he added, a function of “the security vacuum that a diverse group of independent actors are exploiting for their own purposes.”

Via: The Daily Brett Blog

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Tricare Prime Fees Increase Up to 17 Percent Today

U.S. armed services retirees and their families will now pay higher annual fees for the Tricare Prime health benefits system beginning Oct. 1, 2012. The fee increases range from 3.6 percent and 17 percent (for most), reports the Navy Times:

Military retirees who enrolled in the system on or after Oct. 1, 2011, and all new beneficiaries will pay $269.28 a year for an individual, up from $260, and $538.56 for a family, up from $520.

Those who were in Prime before Oct. 1, 2011, will see their annual fees increase from to $269.28 from $230 for individuals and to $538.56 from $460 for families. [...]

The Obama administration had pressed for heftier increases in its proposed fiscal 2013 defense budget along with new enrollment fees for Tricare Standard, Extra and Tricare For Life, the health benefit for Medicare-eligible retirees and their families.

The proposal was struck down by the House and Senate Armed Services committees on a bipartisan basis.

The Obama administration originally pushed for significantly higher premiumsfor Tricare enrollees in their fiscal year 2013 budget, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon earlier this year. In July, the administration threatened to veto a defense appropriations bill, in part, because it did not include higher Tricare fees.

Via: WFB

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