Ascension Catholic Church leaders now say "we regret that this item was included in the bulletin"

Jul 01, 2024

When Ascension Catholic Church in Missouri published its weekly bulletin on June 16, parishioners would have found a full-page advertisement to join a militia. It called on men ages 18-29 to scan a QR code (redacted below) to fill out an application with the aim of forming a group “dedicated to protecting the Holy Eucharist, our congregation, our clergy, and the church grounds.” The men would receive “instruction in military operations.”

(Follow above article link to view original article with PDFs/photos.)

The application said “Ascension Parish in Chesterfield, MO has been chosen as the testing ground for the militia and, if successful, we hope to establish platoons at parishes around the world.”

That Google form that is no longer publicly available. And neither is the bulletin containing the ad; it’s been not-so-subtly removed from the church’s website. Previous bulletins are available to read except for the one from that week:

Rev. Eugene Schaeffer said last week that the church is “working on a retraction right now” and that “There is no militia.” If you visit the church’s website, the front page currently features an apology insisting the church wants nothing to do with whatever was being advertised.

On the weekend of June 16, 2024, an announcement ran in the Ascension Catholic Church bulletin from an individual who was recruiting members for a group he called the Legion of Sancta Lana. The advertisement, which included a QR code with an application for membership, suggests that a militia would be formed and that this group would be affiliated with Ascension parish. This is, of course, untrue.

To be perfectly clear, there is no militia being formed, and we regret that this item was included in the bulletin. Furthermore, the suggestion that our community might require a militia in order for us to celebrate the Eucharist is both inappropriate and unhelpful. Please be assured that there have been zero threats made against our community.

We sincerely apologize for this error and the anguish it has caused, and we believe it is in the best interest of our parish and our community for us to clarify that we do not support this activity. 

As far as an apology goes, it’s… fine. The Church says there’s no militia, that the ad never should have been printed, and (importantly and honestly) that the Church community isn’t under attack. They don’t need guns to protect consecrated wafers.

But that raises an interesting question of its own: Where did that belief come from? Why did the people who created the ad and those who filled it out think they were under attack? Well, the application form included a reference to an article published by the conservative U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops saying there had been “333 incidents” including arson and vandalism against churches since 2020… but even that article never suggested that an armed group of young Catholic men was the solution to prevent those destructive acts.

That said, it would have been far better if Ascension explained how they would deal with the person who submitted the ad, why no one working there bothered to take even a cursory glance through the bulletin before printing copies of it, and what they preach that might lead someone to falsely believe Catholics are persecuted in the U.S. Also, why did it take the Church over a week to address the concerns? Did they not know this was in the bulletin or were they only reacting after getting publicly shamed online?

Without understanding those core problems, there’s no reason to trust that this won’t happen again.

It’s even more disturbing that the militia application said participants would work as ushers in the church, sing in the choir, and read passages during Mass. This was never going to be a volunteer group of Catholic believers acting under good faith; it was meant to be an armed guard wearing identical cultish all-white uniforms working on behalf of God. It’s the sort of mentality that often leads to faith-based violence.

Keep in mind that the FBI issued a memo last year concerning possible threats made by “radical-traditional” Catholics. They were talking about these kinds of militia-loving zealots. House Republicans leaked that report in order to pretend the Biden administration was guilty of anti-Catholic bias, which it obviously wasn’t, but it’s possible this advertisement was a direct result of the GOP’s conspiracy theory.

Laura Burkhardt, a gun safety advocate who first shared this bulletin online, noted that the St. Louis Archdiocese paid out millions of dollars in 2004 and 2023 to settle two different sex abuse cases against one priest employed by Ascension. Which is to say this church has created a lot more problems than it has solved. It’s no wonder they attract the sort of people who think their faith is constantly under attack and that only they, armed with weapons, can protect religious symbols.