21 Feb 2024 @ 11:04 ET

From JENNINGS, CHARLES T (TUC CHAPLAIN SERVICES)

To BRINKLEY, MELVIN GARRETT

Subject General: General Inquiry

Message ID 5334358589

Message

Greetings,

Chaplain Brinkley, I do appreciate your concern. I think the Chapel is something very important to Chaplain Services. I cannot go into many details but we did have a visit somewhat recently from the Chief of Chaplains. The chapel was one of the things she looked at during her visit here. She did meet with the director and other key people in leadership. Things continue as they were.

Respectfully,

Chaplain Charles Jennings





The director of the VA Medical Center (VAMC) in Tucson, Arizona, has mandated that all conference rooms be reserved by authorized VA staff members. This policy essentially bans all Non-Christian Veterans from using the "Chapel and Conference Room" since there are only Christian VA chaplains on staff who can reserve this room for religious purposes. VHA Directive 1111 (July 21, 2021), Chapter 9, a. (6), states that: "Chapels must remain available at all times for use by Veterans and their families.” This VHA Directive safeguards the privilege of all Veterans having access to their chapel at all times. Unfortunately, Tucson VAMC has been able to disregard this federal mandate to the detriment of all Non-Christian, who have no access, and Christian Veterans, who have extremely limited access.



When the "Chapel and Conference Room" is not being used for worship, this room is locked up or used by other VA staff members for their meetings. I use the phrase “Chapel and Conference Room” because that is the title given to this room in the blueprint I have provided. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution mandates that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" The religious needs of Veterans who are enrolled at this VAMC in Tucson are therefore not being equally accommodated by Congress, the governmental body that sets the budget for the VA and therefore ostensibly condones this, restrictive at its best and prejudicial at its worst, conference room reservation policy. The other VAMCs in Arizona, which are in Phoenix and Prescott, allow Veterans and their families to have access to their chapel at all times.



This “Chapel and Conference Room” is used for less than four hours, on Sunday morning, as a chapel during the week. Four hours equates to 2.4 % of a week. In the other 97.6 % of the week, this room is treated as a conference room by VA staff. Why do Christian Veterans and their families get the extremely short end of the stick in this so-called "dual purpose" deal, a justification given by this VAMC director for using the chapel as a conference room? Worse still, Non-Christian Veterans and their families get absolutely no access to their chapel.



The "Chapel and Conference Room" at the Tucson VAMC has a vestry, an altar, a massive church organ, and a chancel, which makes this space distinctively a chapel and not a conference room. Why relegate Veterans to “meditation rooms” when there is a perfectly good chapel on this VAMC campus, especially when there are over sixty plus other conference rooms for upper management to use for their meetings? There is no shortage of conference rooms as one might expect from this bizarre “dual purpose” arrangement. I know there is no conference room shortage because I worked at this VAMC for ten years. Some conference rooms get very little use. This top-tier VA Medical Center receives over half a billion dollars of taxpayer money annually in order to provide healthcare for over 170,000 Veterans and yet they inexplicably miss the mark on this particular issue.



During my entire military career as a USAF chaplain, my commanders never let their staff or anyone else use the chapel as anything but a chapel. The chapel was treated as a sacred space for all faiths. Even in Afghanistan, when we had nothing but a tent as a chapel, that tent was treated as sacrosanct. We chaplains made sure that chapel was made available to all military members at any time for their religious needs. Meeting the spiritual needs of those who “...have borne the battle…” (President Lincoln’s 1865 Second Inaugural Address) should not be relegated to ineptly furnished “meditation rooms,” not when there is a perfectly good chapel available on this VAMC campus.



This Southern Arizona VA Healthcare System (SAVAHCS) conference room policy: 1) violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in regards to religious freedom; 2) violates a VHA Directive by restricting and prohibiting Veterans and their families from having access to their chapel; 3) contradicts the VA mission of being Veteran-centric; 4) makes Tucson's VAMC an outlier among all the other Arizona VAMCs as far as chapel access is concerned; 5) unwittingly or wittingly promotes Christian Nationalism because Non-Christian Veterans have no access to their chapel whatsoever; 6) offers a substandard solution in the form of “meditation rooms” even when there is no shortage of conference rooms on campus; and 7) disingenuously posits “dual usage” of the “Chapel and Conference Room” as a legitimate practice when that practice clearly shortchanges all Veterans and their families in light of the fact there is no conference room shortage at this VAMC.



Another issue: There are six inch steps in the chancel and vestry areas of the Tucson VA Medical Center that make it unsafe for those who have ambulatory challenges. This violation is covered in multiple, federally mandated regulations for VA hospitals. I have complained repeatedly to the Congressional Oversight Committee, the VA OIG, and the Office of Special Counsel. Nothing has been done so far to make the chancel and vestry areas safe for those with ambulatory challenges. VHA Directive 1111 (July 21, 2021), Chapter 9, a. (4 ) states that “All spaces to be used for spiritual purposes must be fully accessible to persons with disabilities.” Upper management keeps saying that the audience area of the chapel is level and presents no violation. What upper management, the VA OIG, and the Office of Special Counsel doesn’t understand is that Veterans and their families set up, participate in, and neutralize worship services, utilizing both the chancel a