THE “KHAKI” PRIESTS

New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1919, Page 11

THE “KHAKI” PRIESTS

—# (By Bernard J. McNamara in The Record of LouisviMe .)

The great epidemic of influenza is bringing to the arm chaplains in our cantonments here the praise and honor that are their due. Shot and shell and gas bombs attract more attention than the. hacking cough and the delirium and the hemorrhage of the influenza and pneumonia ward. But the priest who worked in the latter was just as much a hero as the one who labored amid the former. Both endangered their lives from a sense of duty, sanctified by love. My observations were made in a southern camp during the full course of the epidemic there. There is not the slightest doubt that such observations are true of every camp in the United States. The epidemic snick the camp with a suddenness that overwhelmed the medical staff. Ambulance after ambulance hurriedly dashed up to the receiving station, and soon the magnificent base hospital was filled with an army of diseased soldiers. The fire house became a little hospital, the chapel was a sick ward, and finally a tented hospital with 1800 patients raised its head in the surrounding fields. Every place that was available was used for the sufferers. In all 8000 men were cared for at the base hospital. Very many Catholic boys were among the number. The fever began to mount in hundreds of cases and the dread pneumonia commenced its course of death. Then the cries began in no uncertain terms: “Doctor, for God’s sake get me a priest.” “Nurse, I want the priest.” “Tell the priest to come quickly.” In such ways did hundreds of Catholic soldiers, urged undoubtedly by the grace of God, voice their urgent request. Racked with pain, burning with fever, and overcome with extreme weakness, they felt life slipping away from them and they realised that now they needed a physician for their souls, the priest. They did not ask for him, they demanded him. And the doctors, many of them with little or no faith, were impressed by what they heard and rushed to the commanding officer. The situation was desperate. Only on© Catholic priest was in that camp of 18,000 men, and to him fell the work. The old commander, a grizzled army veteran, realised that one priest. could not stand the labors demanded of him. He declared in terms most picturesque and most emphatic that these boys would have priests if he could get them. The hustling secretary of the Knights of Columbus was commissioned to get priests and get them quickly. An S.O.S. telegram to a large city seven hours distant brought a response. A true priest of God came as fast as the. train could bring him. He found'the army chaplain on the verge of a collapse and forced him to take to his bed. ■ So, for four days and nights this civilian priest worked with only five hours’ rest. Just ninety miles away from the large camp was a much smaller camp of 1500 men.

Three Catholic army chaplains were there- They knew the situation at the other camp, whereas there was no serious case at their little camp. They had volunteered for the greater work. But army red tape had to be unravelled, and so they waited impatiently, wondering how many souls were going into eternity without the aid of the Sacraments.

Finally the orders arrived and the first train took them on their errand of love. The civilian priest broke down the day after their arrival, a victim of the terrible influenza. The epidemic was now at its height; 5000 men were sick and hundreds of pneumonia cases had developed. The newly , arrived army chaplains set to work. They labored night and day, snatching a little sleep when it was possible to do so. After five days of such strenuous work, one priest was literally forced to bed by the doctors. So only one priest remained to do the work. But now the epidemic was on the wane. For two days and nights this priest was the only chaplain, Catholic or otherwise, in that great hospital. Then the chaplains from the school at Camp Taylor came, and among them were two priests. Some cases of spinal 'meningitis had developed, and here, too, in that isolated ward was work for the priests. But the epidemic had run its course. All the priests affected are now well and their weakness is only a reminder of the great things that they were able to do for God, for souls, and fox* the Church. They are now cheered by the wonderful knowledge, gathered from a comparison of their records with the record of death, that God in His providence so disposed the relays of priests that not a Catholic died without the reception of the Last Sacraments. A beautiful and consoling thought and a mighty compliment to the kind of work done by Christ’s active and zealous ministers!

The foregoing recital of facts was made so that some practical and pertinent reflections and conclusions might be drawn from the data. First of all, a wonderful impression was created upon the doctors, nurses, and orderlies and also on the Protestant patients by the splendid act of faith that showed clearly in the demand made by the hundreds of Catholic boys, white and colored. Alter the first days of the epidemic, the Protestant boys were absolutely without spiritual help from their own ministers. So the Catholic chaplains of necessity became the spiritual helpers of every one of the sufferers irrespective of religion. The kindness of the priests towards the sick, their unselfish and untiring devotion to their duty and the wonderful spirit of faith displayed by the Catholic soldiers before and especially after the reception of the Sacraments produced very practical results among the non-Cathol|ic soldiers, both white a-ud colored. Twenty-five of them asked and received baptism before their death.

A number of them had never been baptised before. While others did not go so far as to receive the Sacraments from the Catholic priests, still they joyfully accepted his kind office in directing their dying thoughts toward Almighty God and their last end. . Many a Protestant boy’s eyes were closed in death by the Catholic priest after the soldier had made a fervent act of contrition aided by the shepherd of Christ. But, above all, a kinder feeling towards the Church and the Catholic priest sprang up in the hearts of all these soldier boys, whether Protestant or Mormon or Jewish, because of the almost Divine service of love rendered by . the ambassadors of Christ in this time of sorrow and pain and suffering. Greater, because more intelligent, was the impression made upon the doctors and nurses by the presence and work of the Catholic chaplains. A new impression had been made upon them by the insistent demand of the seriously ill soldiers for the priest. They had attended Catholic patients before. But this was some- . thing different; it was the individual Catholic sick room magninea nuiiureds of times, and everybody was witness to the magnificent act of faith voiced by thou-

sands of .Catholic? who loved their faith. 7 These men and women could not ignore nor forget what they saw and heard. They thought about the phenomenon and talked on it. Finally, the thought found its expression of wonderment: ‘ * What a wonderful faith to possess.” The most striking example was of a major in the medical corps. He had charge of the negro patients. One must remember that half the patients in the whole hospital were Catholics. The major was especially impressed with the faith of colored Catholic soldiers. . At the end of the epidemic, he said to one of the priests: ‘ Father*, these negro Catholics have a wonderful faith : I know that they are happier than I have ever been, I envy them their faith. The priest agreed with his correct conclusion and showed him how he might possess the same happy faith. But he was not willing yet to make the sacrifice. Unmindful of rest and food, the two things most needed in avoiding the dread influenza, the priests worked among, the sick. They seemed unmindful of danger, too. The doctors thought them foolish, and some of them told _ this to the priests in a kindlv way. But they admired them, too, as the same time. They could not understand how the chaplains could be so forgetful of their health. They seemed to forget that the number of priests was only two, while the doctors’ grand total was 150. They did not realise that while they worked hard from a sense of duty, the priests labored out of pure, love of Christ and the salvation of souls. It was the difference between labor from a sense of duty and labor from a spirit of love, and there is a very great difference. The doctor’s admired the priests not only because they saw them assist the dying to die well but also because they came to realise the material help that was given them in bringing back their patients to health. The bright, happy smile of these ministers of Christ in the midst of so much pain and suffering, the pleasant morning salutation and the cheery word that raised the patients from the depression into which their extreme weakness had thrown them, came to be recognised as a tonic fax* exceeding any material medicine. The doctors were glad to see these dispensers of the mysteries of God come into their wards. They were always so happy, so consistently cheerful that, they spread sunshine and gave an impetus towards recovery wherever they went. The doctors admired, wondered, they could not understand. But what priest would not be happy and cheerful even though tired and famished when he was saving souls for Christ in such abundance!