WASHINGTON — The U.S. bishops have warned that the religious freedom of Catholics and Church institutions is under threat, so recent headlines asserting similar problems in the military are often accepted without question.

But do Catholics in the armed forces actually face challenges to the free exercise of their faith? And if they do, where does the danger come from, and who should provide an authoritative judgment?

The need for clarity on such matters has gained urgency as Louisiana Republican Rep. John Fleming’s  proposed amendment that would strengthen religious freedom in the military fuels intense controversy on Capitol Hill.

Last month, the House Armed Services Committee approved Fleming’s amendment, which was included in the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act, and the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a similar amendment on a bipartisan vote.

Fleming has stated that Christians in the military face mounting efforts to suppress religious speech, and the Archdiocese for the Military Services has backed his amendment, reflecting the U.S. bishops' consistent defense of the free exercise of religion as changes in the nation's marriage laws pose challenges to chaplains and service members.

But President Barack Obama has vowed to veto legislation that he said would undermine military order.

And Fleming’s opponents, including Mikey Weinstein of the private Military Religious Freedom Foundation, argue that the real threat to the free exercise of religion in the military comes from aggressive evangelical groups that have targeted Catholic service members.

Since 2006, Weinstein has fought to bar what he calls “unconstitutional” proselytizing by evangelical groups on military bases, and he has  presented himself as the defender of both Catholic and, more recently, openly homosexual soldiers beseiged by "right-wing" Christian fundamentalists.

On July 17, the Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS) stepped into the fray, issuing a statement by AMS general counsel John Schlageter that identified the AMS as the "official voice of Catholics in the military."

“The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA is recognized by the federal government as the sole endorser of Catholic military chaplains as well as Catholic chaplains serving in the nation’s Veterans Administration medical centers,” read Schlageter’s statement.

The AMS statement emphasized that the archdiocese was proactive about addressing concerns from Catholics chaplains and service members. 

“Mr. Schlageter’s office serves as the principal recipient of phone calls and letters from Catholic service members who believe their religious freedoms have been violated. The AMS is also the primary advocate for military Catholics on Capitol Hill."

Further, the AMS statement noted that “Archbishop [Timothy] Broglio himself is on record as a devoted champion of First Amendment rights for Catholic chaplains, as demonstrated in January 2012, among other occasions, when he held firm against efforts by the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains to suppress a pastoral letter in opposition to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) mandate for abortion insurance coverage.”

Archbishop Broglio — who has endorsed Fleming’s bill, as well as the newly formed Restore Military Religious Freedom coalition,  led by the Family Research Council,  was traveling and unavailable for further clarification.

But the unusual statement released by the AMS reflected a concerted effort to tamp down public confusion about who speaks for Catholics in uniform.

“Any other individual or group that claims to be charged with protecting the religious-freedom rights of Catholics in the military, no matter how well-intentioned, is acting independently and is not the official voice of Catholics in the military,” the AMS statement concluded.

Still, it won’t be easy for the AMS to get that message across.

Google the phrase “religious freedom in the military,” and the first link at the top of the page will take you to a webpage requesting donations.

“Help build the wall. Your donation will allow us to continue our fight in the courts and in the media to protect the constitutionally guaranteed right of religious freedom for our U.S. service members,” states the message on the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

The donation form follows, and then, at the bottom of the page, the sharp-eyed reader will get a “Thank you for helping us build the wall separating church and state in the U.S. military.”

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation was established in 2006 by Weinstein, the author of With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military. Weinstein is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a former legal counsel in the Reagan administration and an aide to Ross Perot.

Weinstein’s mission, states the foundation’s website, is to “directly battle the far-right militant radical evangelical religious fundamentalists.” Since the foundation was established, Weinstein has battled for the removal of religious symbols on military bases and waged a highly inflammatory campaign against evangelical groups that he says are harassing service members.

This April, Weinstein met with Pentagon officials and several generals to discuss the alleged problem of evangelical proselytizing, and Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn reported on his broader message to the military brass.

“Weinstein told me after the Pentagon meeting that military leaders need to understand that ‘there is systematic misogyny, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the military,’” Quinn wrote. “He said it is all part of the same culture.

“‘And what the Pentagon needs to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.’”

Shortly afterwards, whether as a result of Weinstein's Pentagon meeting or by coincidence, a flurry of statements regarding religious proselytizing in the military were issued by the Department of Defense and the Air Force. Finally, a clarifying May 2 statement from the DOD noted that the "department makes reasonable accommodations for all religions and celbrates the religious diversity of our service members.

"Service members can share their faith (evangelize), but must not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others of any faith or no faith to one's beliefs (proselytization)," read the DOD statement.

"We work to ensure that all service members are free to exercise their constitutional right to practice their religion in a manner that is respectful of other individuals' rights ... in ways that are conducive to good order and discipline."

Still, Weinstein and his staff have pressed their case, prompting Fleming to call on Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to ignore the foundation's crusade.  

Fleming has been clear that his amendment did nothing more than bolster existing constitutional protections.

“Even when there is conflict in ideas, more speech is always preferable to limitation of speech,” stated Fleming after the Senate committee passed a similar amendment last month.

Russell Moore, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, explained the danger for military chaplains during a July 18 interview with The Washington Post.

“It’s easy for [the chaplaincy] to become just a religious extension of the government. If that’s where chaplaincy is headed, you won’t have Catholic and Muslim and Orthodox Jewish chaplains. You’ll just have bland, generic civil American religion,” said Moore.

But Weinstein and his team aren't giving ground, and they now present themselves as the defenders of homosexual as well as Catholic service members.

Chris Rodda, a senior research director at Weinstein’s foundation, posted a recent column in The Huffington Post that attacked Fleming’s bill as an effort “to officially grant permission to anti-gay service members to freely discriminate against and harass LGBT service members, despite the fact that DADT [Don’t ask, don’t tell] has been repealed and DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] has been overturned.”

Responding to Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who dismissed the foundation's claims as "bunk," Rodda insisted the foundation had been contacted by more than 8,000 Catholics, though specifics, such as dates and issues of concern, were not provided.

While the religious-freedom amendment awaits a vote in the Senate, the charges and countercharges will likely continue.

However, the recent efforts to present the foundation as the defender of homosexual service members suggests that the issue of who speaks for Catholics in the military reflects a struggle to define emerging threats to the free exercise of religion during a period of rapid social and political change.

In a parallel First Amendment debate sparked by the U.S. bishops' opposition to the federal contraception mandate, the mandate's supporters have sought to reframe the issue to make Catholic nonprofits the enemy of constitutional civil liberties: Employers who don't provide contraception in their health plans have been accused of violating the religious freedom of individual workers. 

Joan Frawley Desmond is the Register’s senior editor.