Many have been shocked and dismayed by the new Canadian Forces General Instruction from the Commander of Military Personnel (CANFORGEN), issued July 29, decreeing a “spiritual neutrality” upon all Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Chaplains whilst they function in any public ceremony that would have historically included prayers. In so doing, a “new, modern Prometheus,” a new “Act of Supremacy” has been created.

Nowhere in the history of human religious faith expression has there ever been a definition of “The Spirit” as being neutral. The Spirit, regardless of any faith that currently may be ascribed to by humanity, is anything but neutral. If anything, it is the inclination to act, to justify and to defend the honour of the godhead of one’s own religious beliefs or lack thereof. Neutrality, with respect to a faith, may seem to exist only in the realm of atheism, since it is in that realm that a spiritual association with a deity is totally void and rejected. Yet, there too one could posit that a “spiritual” commitment to deny is at work in and of itself. Neutrality is a choice, a willful act of the mind, but it is never inactive since it serves in working to its own decided end of maintaining lukewarmness and indifference.

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This new policy wreaks of the history that humanity has often ignored and has doomed itself to repeat accordingly. As Eve “stole” the forbidden fruit and gave it to man, so too had Prometheus stolen fire from the gods so as to give it to man. The literary and literal punishment that follows upon these two acts of disobedience foretell the onslaught of man’s desire, like Satan’s, to make of ourselves gods. Mary Shelley, in Frankenstein – The Modern Prometheus, lays out in literary context the reality of what the science of the day was attempting to allow humanity to engage in — the ability to create life by virtue of the will as opposed to the natural, biological means already granted within our nature. The monster of Frankenstein’s endeavour is emblematic of what comes when we seek to replace God with our own selves. The monster has no soul, and never will, outside the activity of God.

Spiritual neutrality is equally void of a soul. It will never satisfy the inherent hunger that humanity has, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, to seek the divine in whichever way we choose to understand the divine. For Jews, Christians and Muslims, it is the God of Abraham.

This CANFORGEN, despite references to God and spiritual wellness, decries the very DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) policy it dares to say it is protecting and enforcing. From the outset, an exception is made for Indigenous beliefs and practices, many of which have Christian ties as far back as the 1600s when missionaries were arriving in present day Canada. How possibly then, does the DEI policy show as fair when it acts as Destructive, Inequitable and Exclusive? They break their own rules and ridicule anyone who challenges them, catching them in their own web of deceit. 

This CANFORGEN is a monster with no soul that seeks to tear out the soul in the society it purports to serve, the Canadian Armed Forces, so as to make, like unto itself, another monster with no soul. And those who willfully ascribe to this diktat, especially Chaplains, surrender the very soul given to them by God and the souls that they are called to nurture and protect. “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture, I will visit punishment upon you” (Jeremiah 23: 1,2).

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When Henry VIII demanded in his Act of Supremacy the declaration of him as head of the church in England, he dismissed the authority of the Church of Rome which he had pleaded with to permit a marriage for the good of the state. But, because he would not accept the fruit, or the lack thereof, of that marriage, nor the consequences that befell thereafter, he took it upon himself to replace God as the spiritual leader within the church he then claimed as his own, and within the society and the soul of his subjects, thus side-barring the Truth of God’s revelation to humanity and the governance of the Church Jesus Christ established.

And so still, in this new policy, in yet another way, does the Truth suffer, as will the souls of those who seek real Truth in their lives but are led astray by bad shepherds, whether religious or political.

The politic of this needs to be seen and fought against for what it truly is — deceptive, even demonic. Under the government of these past 10 years, the art of politics has become the art of deception, not the art of governance. Additionally, I find it disconcerting the CANFORGEN cites the Supreme Court decision on spiritual neutrality (Supreme Court of Canada’s Saguenay Decision – 2015). Last I checked, the Court is called to enforce the law, not make it! 

Many will argue that the Church has no place in politics, but she does. Every Church has a place in politics because politics is the dialogue of governance, and the dialogue of governance is the expression of human opinion in guiding human society forward with mutual respect and dignity. This cannot happen if the very core of our humanity, the spiritual, is excised like a cancer from within us. Without this spiritual core to our lives then, we are nothing; we can do nothing; we are dead; we are “neutralized”; and we become the anti-thesis of why we were ever created at all.

Wisdom, understanding, counsel, piety, fortitude, faithfulness, knowledge and fear of the Lord, are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, whilst love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. None of these are neutral, and never will be, regardless of any policy you want to issue or believe in. Such policies are a ruse; a deception; a denial of the fact that we as human beings, who have an innate spiritual nature, whether we choose to believe it or not, that is ever active in our lives and of which will only cease to be so when we die to this mortal life. 

Thus I say to you, and most certainly to the current Chaplains of our Canadian Armed Forces, what St. Thomas More said of his convictions in life: “To thine own self, be true!” and “I am the King’s Good Servant, but God’s First!” Remember who it is that you are as Chaplains. You have a duty before God to defend the honour of God. If you are so quick to compromise yourselves on the altar of neutrality, what will become of those of whom you are called to serve? What compromise are you leading them into? Should we as shepherds be diligent in defending the flock from the wolves or are we, out of weakness and convenience, opening the gate for the wolves to freely ravage the flock? I challenge you because I care for you and for those of whom you are called to suffer for and defend.

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“The Truth will suffer; but it will never die!” as St. Teresa of Avila reminds us. There is always the recourse to refuse unlawful commands, especially those that demand of us the compromising of our own beliefs and convictions in the fulfilment of our duties. This CANFORGEN is such an order that deserves ignoring, if not at least a serious re-consideration of who it is that we say we are as a nation — as people of faith of a nation that claims to be “founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God.”

(Fr. Nelligan is pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Ottawa and a long-serving veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces.)