#USA #DC – On April 3rd, 2026, the Pentagon hosted a Protestant-only Good Friday service at its in-house Memorial Chapel. An internal email from Air Force leadership reminded staff: “Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel.”
The Pentagon invited more than 3,500 employees to the event. A War Department spokesperson confirmed that the Protestant service was the only one scheduled in the chapel that day, with no separate Catholic service planned. Although Catholic liturgy is not celebrated on Good Friday, a Passion service is typically held to commemorate the death of Jesus before his resurrection on Easter. The email’s phrasing highlighted this liturgical difference, but the lack of any alternative Catholic observance drew criticism from some employees and observers, who viewed it as exclusionary.
The Pentagon Memorial Chapel normally functions as a 24-hour interfaith space for prayer and reflection, and it routinely hosts separate Protestant and Catholic services on other days to accommodate differences in practice. One employee reportedly called the situation “ridiculous,” while public commentary ranged from accusations of bias to defences noting the standard liturgical distinctions between denominations. Recent demographics pose approximately 45% of all Christians in the United States as Protestants with 22% as Catholic.
No detailed public schedule, livestream link, or attendee reports about the specific content of the Protestant service have been released at this time. This story comes at a time in which deep Protestant-Catholic divides have been felt through the country since the start of the Iran War, specifically between evangelical Protestants in support of the war, and traditional Catholics who oppose the war.
On the same day, the Archbishop for the Military Services, USA, Timothy Broglio, spoke in an interview in which he advised that the current conflict in Iran did not meet the criteria for a Just War. He also made a comment that the invocation of Jesus Christ’s name and prayers related to war from the Secretary of War were “problematic.” He further advised troops to “do as little harm as you can, and to try and preserve innocent lives” while serving, emphasizing individual conscience and moral responsibility even in wartime.
Pete Hegseth, an evangelical Christian, has become increasingly unpopular among the public with 70% of Americans favoring his removal from office. He is also known to hold fundamentalist Christian Zionist beliefs, and was under criticism at the start of the war, alongside numerous senior officers, who were disseminating these fundamentalist beliefs to non-commissioned members. Hegseth’s pastor, Douglas Wilson, who was invited to a service at the Pentagon on February 2026, has explicitly held anti-Catholic positions, including calls for a ban on public liturgies and Eucharistic processions. He has also been known to hold radical and fundamentalist beliefs, such as calls for a theocracy and abolition of women suffrage.
Just the day before, on April 2nd, 2026, Pete Hegseth dismissed the Chief of Chaplains, Major General William Green Jr., a Baptist, and many other generals, for unknown reasons. Various speculations have circulated through social media on why these senior officials were removed from their offices, including possible dissent and opposition to the Iran War.
Although unclear, the relationship of recent current events within the Trump administration and Department of War, and the furthering divide between Christians who support and oppose the war, namely evangelicals and Catholics respectively, has become too much of a coincidence for critics to ignore. However, what is clear at this time is that there has become an increasing divide between the two factions as the question of whether a ground invasion will take place or not remain unanswered.
Image: Archbishop Timothy Broglio seen during the CBS interview in which he advised that the Iran War is an unjust conflict according to Catholic teaching on “Just War” principle.
