A presentation made by the U.S. Army which classified Catholics and Evangelical Christians as “extremist” 
religious groups alongside al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan has been criticised as “dishonorable” and “anti-religious” by groups representing army chaplains.
The presentation detailed a number of extremist threats within the U.S. military, including white supremacist groups, street gangs, and religious sects.
The Army removed the offending slide after receiving complaints about the inclusion of Catholics and Evangelicals with these groups.
The presentation identified seventeen religious organizations in a slide titled “religious extremism.” They include al Qaeda, Hamas, the Filipino separatist group Abu Sayyaf, and the Ku Klux Klan.
“Religious extremism is not limited to any single religion, ethnic group, or region of the world,” the slide explains, in language that closely resembles the text of a Wikipedia page on “extremism.”
The presentation then lists Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism as extremist groups.
More than half of all Americans identify themselves as members of those two Christian denominations. National Public Radio reported in 2005 that 40 percent of active duty military personnel were evangelical Christians.
The Archdiocese for the Military Services, a Catholic organisation that trains and endorses military priests and chaplains, said in a release that it was “astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist.”
The AMS called on the Pentagon “to review these materials and to ensure that tax-payer funds are never again used to present blatantly anti-religious material to the men and women in uniform”.
Colonel Ron Crews, a retired Army chaplain and the executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty said that men and women of faith who had “served the Army faithfully for centuries shouldn’t be likened to those who have regularly threatened the peace and security of the United States”.
“It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterisation,” Colonel Crews said in a statement.
An Army spokesperson said the presentation “was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission”.
The person responsible for the presentation, the spokesperson said, “was not a subject matter expert, and produced the material after conducting Internet research.”
President Barack Obama is scheduled to posthumously award the Congressional Medal of Honor next week to Catholic Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun, who died in a North Korean military prison in 1951.
“It is hard to understand how a priest like Chaplain Kapaun can be honored in one breath while his faith-group is dishonored in another,” Crews said.