By Kathryn Wilkens,
4/4/26AP Photo/Omar Havana
According to a Friday report from HuffPost, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon held a Protestant-only Good Friday service at its in-house chapel, with no Catholic Mass scheduled for one of Christianity’s holiest days.
The setup, which excludes a Catholic service for the first time, drew frustration from at least one Pentagon employee after an internal email made the arrangement explicit.
“Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel,” read a Friday email sent by Air Force leadership, according to a copy shared with HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery.
“I guess so the Catholics know their kind ain’t welcome,” one employee said anonymously to HuffPost in response to the message. “It’s so ridiculous.”
A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the chapel would host no separate Catholic service.
“The Protestant service is the only service scheduled in the Pentagon chapel today,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The Pentagon Memorial Chapel serves as a worship and reflection space for employees of all faiths and regularly hosts religious services. The decision not to hold a Catholic observance on Good Friday stands out given the makeup of the U.S. military, where roughly a quarter of service members identify as Catholic.
The episode also lands amid mounting scrutiny of Hegseth’s public embrace of far-right evangelical Christianity. In February, he invited Pastor DougWilson to lead prayer at the Pentagon. Wilson has advocated for a vision of Christian governance that would ban public Catholic rituals, including Masses, Marian processions, and Corpus Christi devotions.
The Protestant-only Good Friday service also comes as Archbishop Timothy Broglio — the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services — just publicly criticized the administration’s posture surrounding the Iran war.
Broglio told CBS in a snippet released on Friday that Hegseth’s invocation of Jesus Christ to justify the conflict is “problematic,” and advised Catholic service members to “do as little harm as you can, and to try and preserve innocent lives.” His full interview will air on Sunday.
The post Hegseth Holds Protestant-Only Religious Service at Pentagon first appeared on Mediaite.