Frontline Faith: Catholic Media Fostering Military Faith

For Veteran’s Day, I wanted to think about faith and evangelization in the military.

I was in the Navy for 10 years. I flew SH-60B Seahawk helicopters.

Looking back on my military career, I’m shocked at how harsh Navy life was toward developing a spiritual life.

All the more shocking is that I actually did have a spiritual awakening in the Navy.

In this post, we’ll see how The Frontline Faith Project might help other servicemen like me.

His faith was confirmed and strengthened by military service

Monsignor Albert Hallin is energetic, intelligent, and devout.

He’s a fire-brand of a priest who’s now in his mid-80’s.

Though his health sometimes fails him now, he’s still sharp and can deliver a homily that hits you right between the eyes.

During the Korean War, he enlisted in the Navy and became a medical corpsman where he served on the front lines with Marine battalions.

A strong Catholic from early childhood, his faith was strengthened even more during his time in the military. There he met many courageous and devout Catholic chaplains and fellow soldiers.

In fact, the people he met in the service confirmed the calling he felt to become a priest, which he did when the war was over.

I was an atheist in the military

My experience in the military was exactly the opposite. I was practically an atheist for most of my Navy career. Most people I knew in the military ignored religion.

The ships I was on were too small to have a chaplain, and there was no way to have Mass while we were at sea. For most people, including me, time in port was all about drinking and sightseeing.

Navy life really doesn’t lend itself to the spiritual life. Nevertheless, I did rediscover (or perhaps really discovered for the first time) my Catholic Faith in the Navy.

My wife and I ended up coming back to the Catholic Church during my last year in the service. Two things made this happen.

One was an absolutely fantastic Catholic chaplain at the base I was stationed at in Japan. Fr. Michael Diaz expertly nurtured our blossoming faith and pastored us back into the fold.

The other was tapes and videos from amazing teachers like Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, and many others. This gave us real Catholic teaching set our hearts on fire for Catholicism.

So, when I heard about Frontline Faith a few weeks ago, I was excited to share it.

What is Frontline Faith?

The Frontline Faith Project provides MP3 players free of charge to Christian U.S. troops.

The players are pre-loaded with over seven hours of content. Catholic and Protestant versions are available. All servicemen have to do is request one.

“I truly believed that people in the military could attend a church service every day and had the enduring support of a chaplain,” said Cheri Lomonte, founder and director of Mary’s Touch and co-host of Mary’s Touch Radio. “That’s how naïve I was,” she continued. When Cheri discovered the truth—that our enlisted men and women can go long periods of time without ever attending a church service or mass—she knew she had to help.

In 2009, Cheri founded The Frontline Faith Project to help troops who often spend months of their lives in harm’s way but had little or no access to chaplains or religious services.

Here are some of the highlights on the Catholic version! Click here to see the full list of content.

• The Celebration of the Mass and homily; Memorial Day 2009 from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
• The Centurions of Rome―A recording of Fulton J. Sheen preaching
• An Examination of conscience
• The (Warrior’s) Rosary
• And much more including music, letters from children, and different stories from Chaplains, Religious Sisters, etc.

What can you do?

There are than 28,000 players already are in the field–but the work is just beginning.

I had a hard time finding faith in the military, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. According to the Department of Defense over two thirds of active-duty U.S. soldiers (more than 964,000) identify themselves as Christians.

“Our troops tell me they are starving for spiritual support,” Lomonte said. “We must feed those who protect our country and our gift of liberty. The MP3 players are food for the souls of our military.”

Donating as little as $24 pays to produce and distribute a Frontline Faith MP3 player. Click here to donate. You can help by spreading the word. Connect with Frontline Faith on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

So who knows, maybe your donation of Catholic content could make the difference in the conversion of a serviceman awakening to his forgotten Catholic Faith.

If it happened for me, it could happen for someone else.

Cheri Lamonte on EWTN’s Life on the Rock discussing Frontline Faith.

Image credit: expertinfantry