CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Close up with Archbishop O’Brien What do you look for in a friend? I look for common values and something I’d like to be a part of me, to make me a better person. And I suppose that individual does the same. It’s that mutuality that makes it a friendship. Favorite advice Any good advice that has kept me going would have had something to do with being grounded in a faith that will always be there, that will always bring you through. Ratzinger said once that unless someone has wrestled with the reality of resurrection, faith can become just a pious legend. It has to rock you. The early apostles experienced that. Every Christian has to go through it. Unless you struggle with faith you’re not going to have much belief. What makes you laugh? Taking myself too seriously and then seeing the incongruities of life. One time I went to the installation of a bishop-friend in St. Paul, Minnesota. After that, I had to go to Ontario, Canada, to a Knights of Columbus convention. So I booked my flight for Ontario. It’s 9 pm. I get on the plane, which is supposed to land at 10:30. I am sitting on the flight and hear that the flight will be 3 ½ hours. How can that be? Well, the plane took me to Ontario. Ontario, California. There’s panic. There’s embarrassment. But I still laugh at that. I got on the wrong plane.

 CD: What can the average person do to help?

O’BRIEN: Families have a role, and they can make a powerful contribution by inviting 18- (or) 21-year -soldiers over to dinner, inviting them into their home and providing that warmth and support amid the loneliness.

 CD: What brought you to the priesthood and to chaplaincy?

O’BRIEN: I always wanted to be a priest. My interest grew out of the strong parish that surrounded me. It was the strength of the parish that brought me to the priesthood.

After seminary, I was supposed to go to Puerto Rico to learn Spanish. Cardinal Francis Spellman sent half of the seminarians in the 1960s to do that. But, at the last minute, I was sent to West Point. I didn’t have a choice. I went, and I took to it. I like sports. I like people. And I very quickly found myself immersed in my duties. This was in the days of Vietnam. A lot of my parishioners weren’t that much younger than I was. I was marrying many of them in June and burying them within a year. A lot of young brides were still in the West Point area, and I had to knock on the door and give them the news. It was heart-wrenching. I witnessed sacrifice and service every day, and it’s still the case today.

 CD: How do you keep yourself spiritually fresh when your parish is, in part, a war zone?

O’BRIEN: A priest must keep his faith strong. To do that, you have to have several things, and you need all of them working in concert (holds out his hand and ticks on his fingers): Prayer. Faith. Sacraments. Friends. Reading. Exercise.

If you do have a balanced priesthood, you’ll get the grace to meet those challenges. God has been good to me and given me the grace to bring the Gospel to the men and women of the military. You know, the whole priesthood and all of Christian life … You have to have a solid humanity to be a saint. And we’re all called to sainthood. Sainthood isn’t for perfect people. It is a process of faith for all of us.

 CD: Does the church's just war doctrine put you in a tough position with the war in Iraq? Pope Benedict XVI has said chaplains are to be peacemakers...

O’BRIEN: No, it doesn’t. It’s a difficult thing for people to understand, but it is our job to bring love, support and faith to people … to strengthen their spiritual life. A chaplain’s focus is on the soldier before him and along the way to answer questions he or she might have. A chaplain is concerned not just with the people fighting a war but also the people coming back who saw terrible things. Sometimes people do terrible things in the heat of a battle, there on the field. You have a split-second to make a decision. And, the military isn’t always right. In the heat of war, people make quick decisions that aren’t always right.

Now, I know the leadership of our military and I can tell you that our leadership is ethical, strong, and does its best. But that doesn’t always translate to the battlefield. A chaplain doesn’t want a warrior to come home thinking it was OK. A chaplain helps those who made the right decisions to be reconciled with those decisions. But if a wrong decision was made, it’s the chaplain’s job to provide reconciliation and moral direction there, too.