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Chaplain accused of sex crimes resigns

By 7 April 2008. Filed in Ethics.

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Officer won’t face court-martial in alleged assault of male soldier

By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, April 7, 2008

HEIDELBERG, Germany — A V Corps chaplain accused of sex crimes and assault has been allowed to resign his commission rather than face a court-martial.

Capt. Anthony C. Mastromarino was allowed to “resign for the good of the service in lieu of court-martial,” officials said. “He is leaving the service,” said V Corps spokeswoman Hilde Patton.

Such resignations, which normally conclude with a less than honorable discharge, are a way for authorities to deal with cases that are deemed troublesome to prosecute, experts said, for a variety of reasons.

Mastromarino was charged in January with several crimes that prosecutors said he committed against a male soldier in Vilseck last June: forcible sodomy, indecent assault, indecent exposure and fraternization. He was also charged with twice threatening and assaulting a woman — in 2005 at Fort Campbell, Ky., and in January in Heidelberg. He also was charged with assaulting a military policeman called to the January incident.

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A chaplain and his mistress

By 18 March 2007. Filed in Ethics.

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An Army chaplain has confessed to adultery and threatening to murder his mistress, according to an Associated Press article.

FORT DRUM, N.Y. – A 10th Mountain Division chaplain was stripped of his rank and sentenced to five months in military prison after pleading guilty to adultery and threatening to kill his mistress when she wanted to end their relationship, Fort Drum officials said Friday.

Capt. John Lau – a Southern Baptist minister described by the mistress as a manipulative sadist – was tried by a military judge who also ordered him dismissed from the Army with all pay and allowances forfeited.

Lau, 50, admitted he threatened to hunt down and kill Amanda Tyler, a 34-year-old British woman he met in 2004 while stationed in England, brought to the U.S. and “married” during a mock ceremony last year at Niagara Falls.

This is quite a sordid tale. Mr. Lau stated that he and his wife wanted some “spice” in their sexual relationship. So, he brought in Ms. Tyler to engage in such immorality. It is unclear to me whether Ms. Tyler was actually complicit in the lurid relationship. She stated that she was “under duress” in the relationship, though she apparently lived with the family and even went on vacations with them.

When Mr. Lau was deployed to Iraq, Ms. Tyler stated that she was going to move out. He apparently responded by threatening three times that he would kill her.

So, let’s see…if all the details of this story are true, there are adultery, enslavement, and murderous threats involved. I think that’s three strikes against the chaplain, both as a military officer and as a minister. He admitted to adultery and threatening to kill Ms. Tyler. The article included no reference to whether he has been defrocked. One can only hope that he will be expelled from ministry in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Prayers in Jesus’ name

By 27 May 2006. Filed in Ethics, News & Commentary.

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I posted the following elsewhere. It offers only a brief introduction of my thoughts on public ceremonial prayer in Jesus’ name by military chaplains.
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At the schoolhouse [Army Chaplain School], my class was told repeatedly not to pray in Jesus’ name. When I was a chaplain candidate, a supervisory chaplain asked me to write a prayer for a graduation; he scolded me for inserting Christ’s name in an “ecumenical setting”. I know of similar incidents secondhand.

I have also run into supervisory chaplains who would go to the wall for their chaplains who prayed according to the forms of their faith.

If the Army didn’t want me to minister according to my faith, it wouldn’t require me to have an ecclesiastical endorsement. If the Army prefers that I be deity-indifferent, it should have not required me to have an ecclesiastical endorsement. I can’t pray to a civic god because no such god exists; I can’t pray to an unknown god. My faith is in a specific (the specific) God, and to pray to anyone or anything else–or no one else–is only meaningless babble. If a commander bars me from praying at a ceremony because I do so in the name of Jesus, then he doesn’t understand prayer and only wants it for show–not to pray in Jesus name would be mere ceremonial blather. Meaningless prayer is no prayer at all.

I should expect clergy of other religions to feel the same about their own prayers.

There is no need, in prayer at a public civic ceremony, to have an “altar call”. After all, the prayer is directed to God, not to the crowd. The crowd is afforded the opportunity to listen in on the prayer, as a means of encouragement, reflection, and–if they desire–agreement. At a change of command, for example, the goal of the ceremony is not spiritual revival but recognition of the staff change; so, I should be offering a prayer that focuses on that topic. However, I will certainly direct the prayer to Almighty God; I will not invoke the favor of some nameless deity. I do not profess faith in a nameless god, and the Army knew that when I came in and wanted it that way.

Provide or perform? A ceremonial prayer is not an issue of providing. Since chaplains are called on to pray (to God), they are performing religious services according to their faith tradition. It is impossible to pray to an atheistic god because, in an atheistic worldview, no god exists. The fact that chaplains are called on to pray implies belief in God.

Chaplains and ethics

By 5 November 2005. Filed in Ethics.

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Earlier today, I was searching for something online and ran accross this article on the JAG Central blog (the original source). I recognized the name of the Army chaplain involved in the matter–in June 2003, I trained with him for a couple of days at Fort Knox.

I searched a little more and came up with these articles: 1 2 3. The articles follow the story from the first news in August. The Roman Catholic chaplain pled guilty to “three counts of forcible sodomy against enlisted men, three counts of committing an indecent act, two counts of fraternization with enlisted service members and one count of conduct unbecoming an officer.” This week, he “was sentenced to five years in prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., dismissed from the Army and ordered to forfeit all benefits.”

The chaplain’s ecclesiastical endorsement was withdrawn and his diocese has suspended him from ministry, stating that no further action will be taken on his ministerial status until after the prison sentence is ended. I’m not sure I understand that reasoning (a priest’s admission of sexual immorality should be enough to result in him being defrocked) but, thankfully, the guilty chaplain has been removed from duty. Let’s hope the diocese will ensure that he never returns to ordained ministry. Sadly, the Marines he abused will have to live with the embarrassment and hurt for the rest of their military careers and their lives.

When I reflect on my training in ministerial ethics, I realize that neither my denomination nor seminary provided any guidance; on the other hand, the Army chaplain school covers this area as much as possible. It is an outrage that the Church provides less ethical guidance to clergy than does the Army.

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