Defend Us in Battle

Catholic Chaplains in the British Military

James Hagerty, Barry Hudd

• Publisher: Sacristy Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781789593587
• eBook ISBN: 9781789593600
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History

The Catholic Church has always had regard for the spiritual and pastoral welfare of those in the military and for centuries priests have ministered to armed forces personnel in war and in peace.

Chaplains have served and continue to serve all branches of the British armed forces. The size and organization of the military and the nature of warfare has been transformed, but the chaplain's vocation remains unchanged. Defend Us In Battle traces the growth and development of Catholic chaplaincy to British armed forces from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.

Taking as its starting point the emergence of a recognized system of military chaplaincy established by the Society of Jesus in Reformation Europe, this wide-ranging survey considers the ministry of chaplains through succeeding centuries. It relates the struggles that Catholic soldiers and sailors endured with British officialdom before being granted their own chaplains.

Defend Us In Battle describes the ministry of priests who over the centuries and across the world have voluntarily provided Catholic service personnel with the solace of religion far away from home and frequently in danger. There emerges a powerful narrative of priestly service not always known or recognized by those outside the military. 

Table of contents

• viiAcknowledgements
• ixGlossary
• xiiiIllustrations
• List of tables
• xvForeword
• “Defend Us in Battle”
• Camp missioners, chaplains and martyrs: The Jesuits and the missio castrensis
• From the Glorious Revolution to Culloden: Stuart and Jacobite chaplains
• Patriot, military chaplain, educator and legislator: A chaplain with the Glengarry Fencibles
• “The devotion of this clergy seems to be very great”: Chaplains in the Crimean War
• “A martyr to hardship and privations”: Chaplains in the Indian Mutiny
• Padres to prelates: Victorian chaplains who became bishops
• “No priest who made the sacrifice had cause to regret the hardships he endured”: Boer War chaplains
• “No one class of our people is perhaps so destitute of spiritual aid, none more in need of it”: Chaplains to Catholic sailors and marines in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
• “His life’s work had been devoted to the Catholic soldier”: The first Army Bishop
• “Nothing would stop him from going with his men”: Fr Finn and the Gallipoli chaplains
• The Battle of Jutland: Chaplains in ironclads
• Military ministry and ecclesiastical diplomacy: Chaplains and missionaries in East Africa, 1914–19
• “To serve, not to be served”: RFC and RAF chaplains
• “Surprised at number of troops on beaches”: Chaplains at Dunkirk
• From Scapa Flow to Hiroshima: Naval chaplains at sea and on land
• “The Japanese went out of their way to obstruct chaplains in their work”: Chaplains as Japanese prisoners of war
• “If we are spared to return, we shall be all the better for the experience”: D-Day chaplains
• “Sky pilots”: RAF chaplains in the Second World War
• “The horrors which one reads about . . . are not exaggerated”: Chaplains at Bergen-Belsen
• The forgotten war: Chaplains in Korea
• The Cold War: Chaplains with the British Army of the Rhine
• “We always have to carry arms when travelling”: Chaplains in Malaya and Borneo
• Colonial campaigns and strategic commitments: Chaplains in emergencies and counter-insurgencies
• OPERATION BANNER: Chaplains in the Troubles
• “Nothing prepares you for the reality of military violence”: Chaplains in the Falklands War
• “The prospect of war does not bear thinking about”: Army chaplains in the Gulf Wars
• “Body armour and extreme vigilance were always at a premium”: UNPROFOR and SFOR chaplains in the Balkans
• “A mission unlike anything we have seen”: Army chaplains in Afghanistan
• War and humanitarian assistance: Modern naval chaplaincy
• From divided Germany to Afghanistan: Royal Air Force chaplains
• Cyprus, the Baltic and Africa: Chaplains with peacekeepers
• Catholic chaplains in the British Armed Forces: Authority, control, convergence
• Catholic chaplains in the British Armed Forces: Entry, induction, training and assimilation
• Commissioned Catholic chaplains in the British army, March 1859
• Catholic Chaplains to the British Armed Forces: Ecclesiastical authority and control
• 381Select Bibliography
• 388Index