Incoming Military Cutting Chaplains

The Minister of Defense Elisabetta Trenta (Frame)

Posted on: 29/11/2018 17:47

The military chaplains, you cut. The Defense project plans to reduce by about 25% the number of some 200 chaplains currently serving in the Italian barracks, with a savings of 15 million euros over five years in the budget of the Dicastery. It is the Minister of Defense Elisabetta Trenta to announce in an interview with Adnkronos, evoking a necessary "revisit" of the system and calling "very big false news" the rumors of a change of direction of the government on this side.

"All those who spoke of this turnaround have spread another great false news because it is exactly the opposite: on the basis of an agreement signed between the Italian State and the State of the Vatican, we are moving towards a re-examination of the order of the military chaplains, which things include a reduction of staff and a reduction of the ancillary economic treatment for a savings that, according to our estimates, are expected to reach nearly 3 million euros per year".

"The competent offices, at the initiative of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in charge of the file, evaluate the regulatory ways to implement the agreement as soon as possible," he adds.

THE REPLIQUE OF MONSIGNOR FRIGERIO. "Today, we have 140 military chaplains, the number of which is 204, which means we have 64 units," said Adnkronos, Vicar General of the Military Ordinariate of Italy, Archbishop Angelo. Frigerio. "The ordinary army Santo Marcianò, nominated by the pope in 2013, makes a good choice: the criteria have naturally become stricter in the light of scandals in the Church – notes Father Frigerio – the budget. of the state by necessity From 2012 to today, the savings are approximately equal to 30 chaplains.In 2018, contrary to what has been said, military chaplains cost 5 million euros to the state, not nine million ".

FATHER ALEX ZANOTELLI PLAUDE A DEFENSE PROJECT. On the chapter of military chaplains, Father Alex Zanotelli gave life to a crusade demanding his abolition. "I thank Minister Trenta for the announced cuts," Alex Zanotelli told Adnkronos, "but this service needs to be abolished." The chaplain's military hierarchy is scary. " The missionary priest says that "the military pastoral service is sacrosanct, but that this service should become the pastoral care of the Church entrusted to parish priests". Father Zanotelli, some time ago, also wrote to the pope asking for his intervention. "I have not heard of this letter," says Zanotelli, "the problem remains the concordat, but we must get out of this bottleneck, but we need a lot of courage."