Chaplains: Unsung heroes during wartime in the Canadian Armed Forces

Click here to hear my column on CBC Radio Manitoba about chaplains in the Canadian Armed Forces. 

On Remembrance Day, we pause to remember those who fought and those who gave their lives during Canada’s wars. But one group we rarely think about are military chaplains — those who minister to the troops during time of war and peace. Here to talk about the vital role they played in Canada’s military is John Longhurst, CBC’s religion commentator. 

So, what do we know about the history of chaplains in Canada’s military? 

Chaplains—that is, religious clergy—have served in Canada’s wars as far back as the War of 1812. During the First World War there were 524 chaplains. In World War Two, that number rose to about 1,400. At least 16 chaplains were killed in the two World Wars. Today there are more than 200 chaplains in the Canadian Armed Forces. 

What did chaplains do during wartime? 

We might think of them doing things like preaching sermons, and they did that. But they also tended to those wounded in battle. When men died, they buried the dead and often wrote letters to their families. They provided pastoral care and counselling to young men scared and far from home. They also organized recreation and sporting events.   

One thing they never did was carry weapons. That is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Canada has always adhered strictly to that rule, including more recently when Canadian troops were deployed to Afghanistan. 

What did most members of the military think of chaplains? 

Most viewed them with respect. Soldiers had special respect for the chaplains who shared the dangers of war with them—especially those who served close to the front line. They could be a bit less sympathetic to chaplains who chose to stay far away from the action, behind the lines. 

Could you give us some examples of chaplains who served in the past? 

Sure. There was George Anderson Wells, an Anglican priest who served with Manitoba’s Fort Garry Horse Regiment in the First World War. He became known as the “fighting bishop” because he chose to stay so close to the front line. He became the most decorated chaplain in the British Commonwealth during that war. 

Then there was Father Rosaire Crochetiere (Crow-shet-e-air) of Quebec’s Royal 22nd Regiment. He was killed in 1918 while helping evacuate the wounded. He was highly respected by the men of his regiment. They described him as being like “a father, a brother, a confidant, a friend.” 

The most famous Canadian chaplain was John Weir Foote, a Presbyterian minister from Madoc, Ontario. On August 19, 1942, Foote was with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry when it attacked the French port city of Dieppe. For eight hours, Foote helped care for the wounded on the beach, frequently leaving the relative safety of the aid post to help wounded men.   

Near the end of that disastrous battle, Foote helped load wounded soldiers into landing craft that would take them back to safety in England. When offered a chance to go back with them, he chose to stay, saying the men remaining in France needed him more than those escaping to England. 

Foote was imprisoned by the Germans, along with about 2,000 other Canadian soldiers. Even there—in the prison camp—he continued to serve: preaching, leading Bible studies and generally trying to keep up morale. 

When the second World War ended, Foote was awarded the Victoria Cross—one of only five Commonwealth chaplains to have received that award, and the only Canadian chaplain to do so. 

Wasn’t one of our Canadian chaplains executed by the Germans in World War Two? 

Yes. That was Captain Walter Brown of Peterborough, Ontario. He was the first Canadian chaplain to land in France on D-Day. He spent his time tending to the wounded and helping bury the dead. He was captured by a Nazi SS unit on June 7 and executed. He was the only Allied chaplain executed during the entire war. 

Brown was buried in France, but the communion kit he used overseas was donated to Huron College in London, Ontario, where it is still used in worship services there. 

You mentioned that there are more than 200 chaplains in the Canadian Armed Forces today. Is chaplaincy today different than it was in the past? 

Yes! In the first World War, military chaplains in Canada were exclusively Christian—either Protestant or Roman Catholic. We saw the first Jewish chaplain during World War Two. 

These days, chaplains in the Canadian military reflect the multi-faith character of all of Canada. They come from Christian, Muslim, Indigenous, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist and even Humanist backgrounds. 

Similarly, members of the military come from various religious backgrounds, or no religious background at all. When asked, many of them said appreciate the work of chaplains—for the spiritual and emotional support they provide, even if they weren’t religious themselves. 

Any final thoughts? 

It used to be said that there are no atheists in foxholes. That is, under fire, everyone became religious. I don’t know if that’s still true today. It’s likely there are many atheists in Canadian military foxholes, just as there are in Canada itself—together with agnostics and members of different religions. Along the way, Canada’s chaplaincy service has adapted to serve them all. 

Photo above: Capt. Robert L. Seaborn, a Canadian army chaplain with the Canadian Scottish Regiment, administering last rites to a dying soldier near Caen, France in World War Two.

Can even Nazis be forgiven? A World War Two story about chaplain Henry Gerecke and some of the world's worst criminals

 

I still feel sorry for Mr. Thiessen, all these years later. It couldn’t have been easy trying to teach Sunday school to a rambunctious group of young boys back in the late 1960s. 

What made it harder was that we liked to try to stump the teacher with hard questions. One of our favourites was about Hitler. Mr. Thiessen liked to tell us that God loved and offered forgiveness to everyone who asked for it. So, we wanted to know, what if Hitler had asked forgiveness—would he go to heaven, too?   

I don’t remember what Mr. Thiessen said. But I now know that Christian forgiveness was indeed extended to 21 of the top Nazis prosecuted during the famous Nuremberg trials in 1945—and that at least three of them took it. 

I know this because I read the book Mission At Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Harper/Collins, 2014) by Tim Townsend. The book is about U.S. Army chaplain Henry Gerecke, and how he ministered to some of the worst criminals in history.   

Before the war, Gerecke was a Lutheran pastor in Missouri. During the war, he served U.S. troops in England and Europe. Since he spoke German, when the war ended he was ordered to Nuremberg, along with Roman Catholic chaplain Sixtus O’Connor, to be a pastor to the 16 Protestant German defendants while O’Connor served the Catholics.   

Why did the victorious allies offer spiritual support to Nazis? The Geneva Convention was the reason. According to the Convention, prisoners of war were entitled to perform religious duties, such as attending worship services, and to be served by ministers of religion. 

After the war, Gerecke admitted he was terrified of the prospect of being so close to men who had committed such horrific crimes. He had seen American soldiers killed and wounded by the German military. He has also visited the death camps. 

But he also knew that, as a “representative of an all-loving Father,” he needed to go so the prisoners could “be told about the Saviour bleeding, suffering and dying on the cross for them.” 

The book records time Gerecke spent with Fritz Sauckel, chief of slave labour recruitment. Each time the two men met they ended their time kneeling on the floor of the cell in prayer. 

“Many times, Sauckel asked for God’s mercy . . . and called himself a sinner,” Gerecke said, adding that before he was executed, Sauckel asked for communion. 

After the trial, Gerecke wrote that he believed that Sauckel, minister of the interior Wilhelm Frick, foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Wilhelm Keitel of the German high command, died “as penitent sinners trusting God’s mercy for forgiveness.” 

Hermann Goering, head of the German air force, also asked for communion prior to committing suicide. Gerecke refused, not believing he was sincere. 

Among the remarkable stories told in the book is the time a rumour circulated that Gerecke would be transferred home because his wife, Alma, whom he had not seen in over two years, wanted him back. One of the defendants wrote her a letter, pleading with Alma to let her husband stay. 

“Please consider that we cannot miss your husband now,” he wrote. “During the past months he has shown us uncompromising friendliness of such a kind that he has become indispensable for us.” All the defendants signed it. Gerecke stayed.   

According to Townsend, the chaplains believed “that God loves all human beings, including perpetrators, and so their decision [to accept the assignment] was more about how to minister to the Nazis, not whether they should.” 

He added: “The process of ministering to those who have committed evil involves returning the wrongdoer to goodness . . . for Gerecke and O’Connor that challenge meant using what they had learned about each defendant to spiritually lead him back from the place where he had fallen to a place of restoration.” 

Townsend went on to say they were attempting to bring “God’s light into a dark heart” by giving “Hitler’s henchmen new standing as human beings before their impending executions.”   

Near the end of the book, Townsend wonders if it was really the place of Gerecke and O’Connor to offer forgiveness, especially to men who had committed such cruelty against Jews. 

“What right does anyone other than those who died in the Holocaust have to forgive anyone” who was part of that Holocaust? The Christian concept of forgiveness “must be strained by the idea of genocide,” he added.   

Gerecke, who died in 1961, likely wouldn’t have seen it that way, Townsend wrote, noting that the former chaplain would have seen those “monsters” as men in need of salvation and forgiveness, who needed someone to minister to them. 

“The Nuremberg chaplains’ one single burden was to return these children of God from darkness to the good of their own light,” Townsend said. 

Originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press in 2014. Also in my book, Can Robots Love God and Be Saved (CMU Press).

If government budgets are moral documents, what do various religious traditions have to say about them?

“Budgets are moral documents.” That quote is attributed to Martin Luther King Jr. In fact, King never said that exact phrase. But it is in keeping with his general philosophy that how governments choose to spend — or not spend — money reveals their moral character by showing what is important to them. 

If that’s the case, what does a budget a government’s morals and values? All the major religions have opinions on this. Christians cite the example of Jesus with his instructions to always remember “the least of these.” Jews think of the Old Testament prophets who condemned leaders who “trampled the poor” or hoarded wealth while neglecting widows, orphans, and strangers.

 

Among the core ideals of Islam is the promotion of justice and social welfare, including always remembering the needs of those who are poor. In Hinduism, rulers have a sacred duty to promote the welfare of all.

 

Buddhists believe that governments should follow the Dasa Raja Dhamma, or the “Ten Duties of a King” including things like compassion, integrity, honesty, selflessness, non-violence and the alleviation of suffering. First Nations believe that governance is about creating harmony between people, communities and with the natural world.

With that in mind, what does the latest federal budget look like to you?

 

Read more in my latest Free Press column.

Photo above from the CBC.

Everyone can relax now; the Canadian government is not going to stop churches from issuing tax receipts

Everyone can relax now; the federal government is not planning to remove the charitable tax status for churches and other religious groups.

Not that it ever planned to do that. But ever since a single recommendation about that made it into the all-party report from the Standing Committee on Finance in December 2024, conservative Christian groups—and the Conservative Party of Canada—have been spreading misinformation that the Liberals intended to hobble churches by taking away their ability to give tax receipts to donors. 

The idea emerged after the recommendation appeared in a pre-budget report (that is prepared before every federal budget), one of 462 that the government under then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was invited to consider. It was never a blueprint for government policy. (As I noted in a column in January this year.) 

But that didn’t stop those groups from continuing to issue false warnings about a report for a budget and a government that no longer existed. 

But now we have an official word from the office of Liberal MP Karina Gould, chair of the House of Commons Finance Committee, that there is no plan to remove religion as a charitable purpose from the Canadian Income Tax Act. 

Charitable status for religious organizations “is not under review, and this government has no plans to change that,” her office said. “Any suggestion otherwise is false.” 

Read about this non-issue in my latest Free Press column.

On the Ground: Brian Stewart on his time as a foreign correspondent with the CBC, the important role religion played in his reporting

 

During his time as a foreign correspondent and senior reporter with the CBC from the 1980s to early 2000s, Brian Stewart interviewed world leaders and reported about events like the first Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Rwandan genocide and the Ethiopian famine. 

While reporting about those important events, one thing that stood out for Stewart was how often religion played a significant role in the news he shared with Canadians. 

“I was surprised to see how relevant religion was for my reporting,” he said, noting that, like many other journalists at that time, he had come to believe that religion was an outmoded and spent force. “I came to see that religion was part of many major stories, although it took a lot to convince my editors that was true.” 

Stewart has gathered the memories of his encounters with religion, and his overall time as a reporter, into a new book titled On the Ground: My Life as a Foreign Correspondent (Simon & Schuster). 

Read my interview with Stewart, including his thoughts about the importance of reporting about religion today, in my Free Press column.

Holy Hurt: New book aims to help those who have experienced spiritual trauma, alert faith leaders to its reality

 

When psychologist Hillary McBride encountered clients from religious backgrounds who had been hurt by their churches, she found their challenges didn’t fit into standard psychological categories—they weren’t only dealing with anxiety or depression, but also with fear of God’s anger and judgment. 

They were experiencing spiritual trauma, which McBride defines as hurt caused by abuse in a religious setting, including the hurt that results from doctrines that emphasize a harsh and punitive God and the worthlessness and wickedness of individual believers. 

Those experiences prompted her to write Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing (Brazos Press). 

McBride’s goals with the book is to help those experiencing spiritual trauma know they aren’t alone and that there is a path for recovery. She also wants to help faith leaders understand that spiritual trauma is real and that they have a role in preventing it—and to bridge the worlds of psychology and religion that are often kept far apart.

Read my interview with McBride about spiritual trauma in the Free Press. 

Are Gen Zers returning to church? Yes, some are, but religion scholars say it's too soon to call it trend

 

Are younger people returning to church? That’s what’s being reported about Gen Zers — people born between 1997 and 2012 — in places in Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom. That’s what’s being reported by some church leaders in the United Kingdom, Canada and in the U.S. 

Those who are writing about it say it’s happening because Gen Zers feel “lonely, isolated, anxious and fearful about the future. The promises of secularism for progress and freedoms simply have not delivered for them,” as one minister put it. 

Added to that is the unsettled and uncertain political situation in the U.S. and around the world, along with the employment challenges caused by tariffs and artificial intelligence for many in that generation. 

Those who study religion acknowledge something is happening, but say it is too early to call it a trend, with one saying there’s no data suggesting sizable conversion rates occurring among Gen Z in Canada or elsewhere. “We are not talking about a revival,” he says, suggesting church leaders need to be careful when talking about it. 

Read more about this in my Free Press column.

Photo above from On Mission.