Catechists in Uniform

Service of West Point cadets extends to Sunday morning religion classes

By BRIAN CAULFIELD

At 0900 hours the ramrod straight, gray-clad cadets call the students to their classrooms. The response is something less than rigidly military. Dozens of pint-size West Point children break away from hopping contests and wrestling matches, dash around, and grab the caps of male and female cadets. They spread Army blankets on classroom floors or struggle to reach their feet to the floor from the tall chairs meant for soldiers-in-training. Sunday catechism at the United States Military Academy has begun.

On hilly Orange County acreage along the Hudson River, and with traditions dating to the formation of the nation, West Point is a world apart. Every precipice leads the eye to grass, trees and rocky drops to the Hudson. The river, wide and winding, rests in the laps of mountains and meets the sky at odd points on the horizon.

Here one generation of officers prepares the next in a military version of the succession of bishops. Here the unthinkable war is thought of and prepared for, and the biblical Armageddon takes on the flesh-and-blood reality of men-at-arms.

Here also the Catholic faith is passed on with a fervor that suggests "there are no atheists in foxholes." The children of academy staffers and military professors benefit from the faith and service of the parents and cadets in the Sunday morning religious education program conducted by Most Holy Trinity parish, located on the post, where Father Michael P. Morris is administrator. More than 250 students from West Point's Catholic families attend classes, from kindergarten to grade eight. Some 60 cadets are catechists.

At 0915 the doors are closed and instruction begins. The children of generals, colonels, captains, lieutenants and noncommissioned officers seem disciplined for their age, but their giggles are as loud as any kids'.

Roberta Jordan, an officer's wife, sits on a green blanket with 11 kindergartners in a circle, as Sindie Secosky, a plebe cadet, acts as teacher's aide. Mrs. Jordan holds up a picture of the boy Jesus at home with Joseph and Mary. Asked to name the figures, a boy calls out, "Today is George Washington's birthday. Daddy told me so."

The teacher talks about family life, then asks if God is our Father.

"Yes," the children say, "he is in heaven. He made us."

Catherine Heppes, director of religious education, sweeps the long hallway for late-arriving students and coordinates the movement of each class in 20-minute intervals into the music room, known during the week as the lecture theater.

"We are so blessed. This is a marvelous situation, to be able to use the classrooms of the academy," Mrs. Heppes, a civilian, told CNY. "We work hard to turn the classrooms into religious catechetical environments."

She is also the director of Most Holy Trinity's Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, a program she founded 10 years ago when she came to West Point. This Sunday, she will bring 20 catechumens and candidates, with their sponsors, to St. Patrick's Cathedral for the Rite of Election. The program is thriving, she said. About 40 percent of the cadets and a large number of faculty members and administrators are Catholic, she said. Cadets are not shy about discussing their faith to roommates and classmates, she pointed out.

"There is a real hunger here to know the truth and teach it," she said, adding that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is the main RCIA textbook. "The people are so warm and wonderful, and they really want to know what it means to be a faithful Catholic."

The parish gears its services to coincide with the academy's ways. Mass times are listed in military terminology, and there is a popular program called Troops Encounter Christ.

The transient nature of the West Point community is a challenge for Mrs. Heppes. Academy students stay for four years, and the average tour of duty for officers is three years. Few children in the catechetical program finish all nine grades. To deal with the varying levels of knowledge among the students, she holds sacrament preparation classes on separate days and places children according to their readiness.

Dennis and Tina O'Driscoll bring two of their four children to the Sunday grade school program and direct the Sunday evening teen program in which their 17-year-old daughter takes part. The group meets at Sacred Heart parish in nearby Highland Falls, and the West Point teens gather with those of the surrounding communities.

"This is an ideal place to raise a family," said O'Driscoll, associate director of admissions for the academy. "You have school on post, housing here, church and catechism here."

Anthony Calabro is an eighth-grader who was born in the hospital on post and has lived there all his life--not exactly the typical "Army brat" who moves every few years. His father is a colonel and professor in the English department.

"I like it here," he told CNY, "but I don't think I would want to come here (to the academy) for school. I've been here long enough."

Mary St. Onge, whose father is a general at the Pentagon, is finishing her senior year at nearby James O'Neill High School. She was born in Heidelberg, Germany, and has lived at Army installations in Texas and Georgia. She has helped with the West Point catechetical program during her three years on post and is applying to enter the military academy in the fall.

"It's great living here, and at West Point you get a good education for the whole person," she said. "If I have children, I would want them to grow up here."

On a weekend in which the secretary-general of the United Nations was meeting with Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, there was little talk among the cadets of the potential conflict, and no signs of tension around the meandering campus. Major John Occhipinti, a 17-year Army veteran who is assistant chief of police on post, told CNY that soldiers are pacifists at heart because they are trained to keep peace or return the country to peace.

He teaches the fifth-grade religion class with his wife, Frances.

"We talk a little bit about war to the kids, and try to explain that while God says, 'Do not kill,' there can be a time when you have to fight a greater evil. We want to make sure that they don't look at this as fun. War is not pretty, and you can't turn it off after two hours like TV," he said.

Cadet Lt. Daniel Cartaya from Pensacola, Fla., will be commissioned at graduation this spring. He said he struggled with the demands of his faith and the requirements of the Army. He talked to priests before entering West Point and decided that if war is to come, the common good will be better served by having military leaders trained in the morals of religion. A catechism teacher for his four years at the Point, he told CNY that the task of handing on the faith is vital.

"I want to be able to give what I have," he said. "I'm at the stage in my life where I am learning to give to others in service."