Parish priest answers call to minister to military

Father Donovan is shown in full dress uniform upon completion of training.If the shortage of priests is having a serious impact on parishes throughout the country, it is an even more serious problem in chaplain ministry.

"There are less than 35 priests for over 200,000 airmen in the Air National Guard, and less than 75 priests for 400,000 active duty airmen in the United States Air Force. The need for Catholic chaplains in the Army and Navy is even greater," says Father Daniel Bergbower, a Springfield diocesan priest, who is a chaplain in the Air National Guard. "Many active duty Air Force bases do not have a priest and rely upon the civilian/diocesan priest in the local community."

Father Bergbower was pastor at St. Peter Parish in Quincy in 2005, when Father Tom Donovan arrived at the parish for his first assignment as a parochial vicar, following his ordination.

"It was my first or second week in the parish as a new priest, and Father Bergbower was deployed to active duty," Father Donovan says. "I remember saying at the end of a couple of the Masses that Sunday, ‘I am proud to be standing here serving here in Quincy, so that he could be over there, serving there.' Then I remember adding, ‘I could never do it.'

"The moment I said that, I heard the deep spiritual question within me ask, ‘why not?' I had let my weight get away from me when I was in the seminary. There I was - a new, 33-year-old priest - who was almost unable to genuflect because of the pain in my knees from being so grossly overweight."

Father Donovan went on a weight-loss program after his first Christmas in Quincy, and lost over 40 pounds by the end of the following summer. "When Father Dan returned from another deployment the following summer, he said I was looking great. He asked me if I had ever thought about working with the Guard. I had - even before I was a seminarian or priest - but it was never an option because of my weight and terrible physical condition."

Father Donovan talked to Bishop George J. Lucas, and with the bishop's approval, he applied to the Illinois Air National Guard. He was commissioned a first lieutenant, and since April of 2008, he has served with the 182nd Airlift Wing in Peoria. The unit's mission is to transport people and materiel around the world aboard C130 transport aircraft.

Father Donovan spends one weekend a month on "drills" with the guard, and additional time on annual training exercises or being deployed with Air Force personnel anywhere in the world.

Father Tom Donovan is “in a tent, sleep deprived and freezing to death with Lt. Lowry and Lt. Barnes” during his Commissioned Officer Training for military chaplaincy at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.At his unit's monthly drills, "It is understood that as a priest and civilian pastor, I am not always available through the entire ‘drill' weekend," says Father Donovan. "Right now I am trying to rotate between doing a Friday-Saturday or Sunday-Monday weekend one month opposite to another month where I am around on both Saturday and Sunday.

"Obviously, this requires some coordination in the parish to get schedules lined up and to make sure that parish ministry is fully covered. Right now Father George Morelock, a retired priest of the diocese, is able to help here in Carlinville, so that I can engage in this ministry to the men and women in the military, no small number of whom come from our own parish communities."

Father Bergbower says, "Father Donovan knew when he became a chaplain in the Air National Guard that this commitment will take him to minister to our wounded warriors at our Army Hospital in Germany; that he will be asked to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our service people in the Middle East and beyond. He understands that he will face many of the same sacrifices and hardships of our service men and women and bring them the hope of Jesus in the midst of conflict and confusion and loneliness. Father Donovan knows he will need the prayers and support and understanding of his parish and his bishop as he meets these desperate needs of our young people serving far from home and in harm's way."

In 2008, Father Donovan was appointed pastor of Ss. Mary and Joseph Parish, Carlinville, and parochial administrator at St. Raymond Parish, in Raymond. Just days after celebrating his first-year anniversary as pastor in Carlinville, he left for a month of Commissioned Officer Training at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.

Father Donovan explains, "This course is the ‘basic training' for individuals who enter the Air Force with an officer's commission on the basis of professional credentials, such as being a doctor or nurse or lawyer. In our class we also had a number of pharmacists, physical therapists, health care administrators, engineers, and two other chaplains. I was the only Catholic priest.

"It was a serious program where we did drill (marching) and PT (physical training) and leadership training. Our instructors knew we were all priests and doctors and nurses, most of whom had no previous military training and were finding the training environment rather stressful. They were firm, however, at making sure that we met Air Force standards so that we could be effective, not only as leaders in our professional fields, but also as officers leading airmen. In the few short weeks I was at COT I still look back to my training flight commander, Captain Toby Smith, as one of the most inspiring mentors of my priestly training and formation I have had. He constantly challenged me to expand my limits and to give even more to the people I serve as a priest and chaplain."

Sometime in the next year Father Donovan will take a six-week chaplain course, which will focus on the ministerial skills needed to function pastorally and professionally in an Air Force context.

In the gaduation march at Commissioned Officer Training at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., Lt. Chaplain Bernard Thomas Donovan is the fourth person in the nearest column."Chaplains are expected to be available to all of all faiths and provide for the free expression of religion as guaranteed by our Bill of Rights," says Father Donovan. "Obviously, as a Catholic priest, there is a unique ministry which only I and no other chaplain can offer to Catholics, so it is something of a dual mission - for the Air Force on one hand and its Catholic personnel on the other.

"My understanding is that as a priest and a National Guard member I have some collaborative control over my future deployment schedule, which no doubt will include the permission of Bishop Lucas and consideration of the needs of my parish," says Father Donovan. "In order to be made available for military service, Bishop Lucas needed to introduce and recommend me to the Archdiocese of the Military Services, which extends to me the priestly faculties necessary to minister to Catholics with the United States military throughout the world. It is literally ‘an archdiocese without borders.' The archdiocese of the Military Services does not ordain or incardinate its own priests, so all priests associated with the military are, essentially, "on loan" from a regular, territorial diocese.

"Right now, I am 80 pounds lighter than my first Christmas in Quincy, and I can actually run and do a fair number of pushups and sit-ups without feeling like a heart attack about to happen," says Father Donovan. "Obviously, I am not joining the Guard to get and stay fit. There are health clubs for that. Service to our military personnel and having the opportunities to be available for that ministry was never an option before becoming serious about turning my life around on this issue.  I have Father Dan to thank for his encouragement, both for the sake of my own health, and for inviting me to think about this new opportunity for priestly ministry.

"Military service is a call within a vocational call that I never seriously anticipated," says Father Donovan. "I love being a parish priest and that is where I belong. But serving in the Air National Guard is helping me as a pastor and leader in my parish, and, I hope, drawing parishioners into prayerful support of those who live a very different life of vocation and sacrifice in service to our nation.

"In the years to come, I hope to be able to do some small part in bringing the church to our young men and women in the field. As difficult as things are becoming in our parishes where there is one priest for every 1,500 Catholics in our diocese, it is even worse for our service personnel. My understanding is that personnel in the field sometimes go for months without receiving holy Communion or being able to offer their confession. This is because in the Active Duty Air Force, there is only one Catholic priest for about every 5,000 Catholics. Because the sacraments are only possible through priestly ministry and presence, some of us priests need to be willing and able to take military chaplaincy on as a mission and vocation within the vocation of priesthood, if the people of God committed to this life of sacrifice and service are to be properly nourished."