Saints in the Army?

From: Adjutant General, U.S. Army

To: Continental Army Headquarters

Subject: Patron Saints

Because of the religious connotations of projects designating St. Barbara as patron saint of artillery and St. Maurice as patron saint of infantry, addressees are directed to ensure a thorough understanding by subordinate commanders . . . [that] activities of this type or of a related nature will be limited to unofficial and voluntary participation by those interested.

Behind the well-starched prose of this memo, sent out last week by the U.S. Army's Adjutant General Robert Lee, lay the sleepless vigilance of the organization known for short as P.O.A.U., and for long as Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State. P.O.A.U. has been increasingly uneasy about what it views as an excessive growth of Roman Catholic influence in the armed forces (and elsewhere), specifically in the promotion of chaplains. But P.O.A.U.'s uneasiness mounted to anxiety when it caught wind of what seemed to its officials a movement to dedicate the U.S. Army to Catholic patron saints.

For Country & St. Maurice. First indication of the trend, according to Dr. C. Stanley Lowell, managing editor of the P.O.A.U. monthly, Church and State, was a drive last spring by the Catholic Holy Name Society at infantry-minded Fort Benning, Ga. to promote St. Maurice as patron saint of the infantry.* A program was drawn up. calling for erection at Benning of a $2,300 statue of the saint, the printing of 30,000 folders on his life, wide distribution of St. Maurice medals and the presentation of St. Maurice scrolls to Fort Benning visitors.

Next came news from Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. that Colonel Franklin R. Sibert, commander of the 2nd Training Regiment and an Episcopalian, had lent his personal weight to a St. Maurice campaign. A large painting of the saint was hung at headquarters, drawings of St. Maurice were displayed throughout the post, the officers' club was named St. Maurice Club, the gym was named after him, and wooden scrolls appeared on the barracks walls bearing the inscription: "We live, fight and die for God, country and St. Maurice."

St. Barbara's Own. Protests to the Defense Department from P.O.A.U. and various Protestant chaplains resulted in toning down the St. Maurice movement at both posts, plus last week's directive from the Adjutant General. But P.O.A.U. is still casting an uneasy eye around the armed services. The organization is currently checking into the possibility of undue Catholic pressure in the naming of the I Corps Artillery's post in Korea four years ago as Camp St. Barbara and the report that artillerymen there are calling themselves "St. Barbara's Own."* "This thing seems to be spreading almost like 'Kilroy was here,' " said P.O.A.U.'s Lowell this week, and then dropped an artilleryman's salvo into the camp of Senator John Kennedy. "If we had a Catholic President, would we have this kind of thing rubbed in our faces all the time?"

* St. Maurice was a senior officer of an all-Christian unit of a Roman army in the 3rd century. Ordered to sacrifice to the Roman gods, the Christian legionaries refused, and St. Maurice and his men were killed.

* St. Barbara (dates unknown) was said to have been martyred by her idolatrous father for refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods, whereupon a bolt of lightning struck him and he burned to death. Hence, by association, she is patron saint of gunners.

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