Keep up on current news, events, speaking engagements, and other exciting developments including the cause of Navy chaplain Vincent R. Capodanno and more!

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Dr. Phil Mango

Dr. Phil Mango is a licensed Catholic psychotherapist from New York, director of St. Michael's Institute for the Psychological Sciences; founder of Warrior Brothers- focused on leadership and manhood development for service to family, Church and society; and visiting professor at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. For more than 12 years, he served as mental health consultant for Mother Teresa's work with the poor. Dr. Mango combines John Paul II's theology of the body with psychology to effectively minister to men and women seeking to overcoming sexual and pornographic addictions and develop healthy relationships with the opposite sex. He has extensive experience treating PTSD with the most effective treatment known, EMDR- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.

Areas of Expertise: PTSD, post-abortive, marital healing, masculine spirituality, psychology of the sexes, Warrior Brothers. Available to speak at your parish or event.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus, (LCDR, CHC, USNR)

Father Michael Duesterhaus is a priest of the Arlington Diocese and a Navy Reserve Chaplain. Fr. Duesterhaus deployed to the Persian Gulf and Iraq in 2005 and 2006, and currently serves as CO of Marine Expeditionary Forces, Religious Support Team- Atlantic. Currently statesides, he is due to deploy again the summer of 2008.

Areas of Expertise: Military service, RCIA while deployed, chaplaincy, humanitarian efforts in Iraq

Fr. John Echert, S.S.L. - Theologian

Chaplain John Paul Echert is a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis and currently serves as Catholic chaplain for the 133rd Airlift Wing of the Minnesota Air National Guard. He is pastor of the parishes St. Augustine and Holy Trinity and serves as the Scripture forum expert for Eternal Word Television Network on the web (www.ewtn.com) where he responds to questions related to the Bible. He has also served as a military chaplain for the Air Force Reserves (AFRC) and was prior service active duty as an electronics and communications technician in the 1970's. His total service in various Air Force capacities spans eighteen years.

Area of Expertise: Scripture, Tradition, Theology, Priestly Vocations

Mr. Christopher Stefanick -Youth and Young Adult Director

Christopher Stefanick is a "veteran" youth minister and has served at parishes in the East Los Angeles area, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.  He is currently the Director of Youth  and Young Adult Ministry for the Diocese of Denver, CO.  In addition to ministry in the Diocese Denver, Christopher regularly gives presentations nationwide as a speaker and Catholic musician.  He is also the Vice President of the Dead Theologians Society, an international youth ministry movement.  Most importantly he is a devoted husband and father of four. Christopher is proud to come from a family full of Navy and Marine veterans.

Areas of Expertise: Youth, Young Adult Ministry, catechisis and evangelization, family life, music. Available to speak at your parish or event.

Dr. James Toner-Military Ethicist

Dr. James H. Toner is Professor of International Relations and Military Ethics in the Department of Leadership and Ethics at the Air War College, where he has been teaching since 1990. A frequent lecturer both at home and abroad on ethics, character development, and moral issues in national security, Dr. Toner currently is The Ambassador Holland H. Coors Distinguished Visiting Chair of Character Development at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He will return to the AWC in June 2004. He has authored several books, including the most recent “Morals Under the Gun: The Cardinal Virtues, Military Ethics and American Society”.

Areas of Expertise: Just War, Military Ethics, Cardinal Virtues, Core Values, American Society

Mrs. Judy McCloskey, Founder of CatholicMil

The daughter of a WWII Timberwolf infantry soldier and the wife of a retired Navy SWO, Judy McCloskey home schooled their six children throughout her husband’s military career. As a military spouse, she recognized the dual need to convey military service as a true vocation, a high calling as defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (¶2310), and to convey the meaning of the sworn military oath. She conceived the idea of an apostolate dedicated to strengthening military families and promoting vocations to the Archdiocese of Military Services USA in 1999, notified the AMS of her intent the end of 2000, received then AMS Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien's blessing January 2001. In 2004, the Capodanno Foundation, now dissolved, entrusted to CatholicMil their mission of making known the life and heroic sacrifice of Fr. Vincent Capodanno. CatholicMil serves as Petitioner of his Cause. She is a wife, mother of six ( two born midway through six month deployments to the Gulf), and the founder of CatholicMil.

Areas of Expertise: Cause of Fr. Vincent Capodanno, LT, CHC, USNR; Military Service as Vocation, Military Saints, locating Sacramental Records. Available to speak at your parish or event.

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"And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people..."
 (Deuteronomy 20:2)

Q) Can a chaplain reveal what is told to him by a member of the military?

A) Whatever is told to a military chaplain in privacy remains within the control of the person who shares the inform-ation.  This is known as Privileged Commun-ication and it applies universally to all military who approach a chaplain as a spiritual or moral leader.  This protection is equivalent to the Catholic “seal of confession” and must not be violated, regard-less of the nature of what is said.  Only if the individual who shared the information releases the chaplain from confi-dentiality can the mat-erial be used outside of the internal forum in which it was shared. Only chaplains are able to offer absolute confi-dentiality on all matters and so they become a first and often most important means of assistance to our troops, who find them-selves in need of a private forum. I hope our troops would never hesitate to approach a chaplain for any matter of spiritual, emotional or moral concern.Catholics should not hesitate to ask specifically for a Catholic chaplain, who can also offer the true seal of confession, as well as the sacrament itself.

Fulton Sheen: It may be asked why should a child be baptized when he has nothing to say about it? Well, why should a child be fed? Is he asked his advice before he is given the family name? If he receives the name of the family, the fortune of the family, the rank of the family, the inherit-ance of the family, why should he not also receive the religion of the family? In our own country we do not wait until children are twenty-one and then allow them to decide whether or not they want to become American citizens, or whether they want to speak the English language. They are born Americans; so we in Baptism are born members of the Mystical Body of Christ.