Since the early 1900s, the U.S. Navy has used the slogan “Join the Navy and See the World” to entice potential recruits.
Father (and naval Lt. Cmdr.) Daniel Swartz of Columbus St. Agatha Church can attest to the accuracy of that statement. Father Swartz, ordained as a priest of the Diocese of Columbus in 2016, is a member of the military Corps of Chaplains and since 2019 has served as a Navy chaplain in Afghanistan, Guam and most recently aboard the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.
That ship returned to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia in early June after being deployed since September 2024 as part of the Navy’s Fifth and Sixth fleets. During four months of that period, the Truman was engaged in combat with the Houthis in Yemen to protect their attacks from closing down civilian shipping in the Red Sea.
“This was the most combat an aircraft carrier has seen since World War II, so things were pretty busy, to say the least,” Father Swartz wrote in an email message to The Catholic Times.
“We launched defensive missions against the Houthis while they shot cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and attack drones against our fleet and aircraft.”
After returning to Norfolk in August, it conducted what the Navy describes as an “ammunition offload” in which it transferred 1,307 tons of conventional munitions to the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and the cargo ship USNS Robert E. Peary. It is now undergoing maintenance and awaiting its next deployment, which has not been disclosed. It has been part of 10 deployments since being commissioned in 1998.
This wasn’t the first time Father Swartz has been in combat. He was a Marine Corps chaplain (the Marines are part of the Department of the Navy) in August 2021 when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. As the last priest to leave that nation, he witnessed the chaos of the evacuation of American troops there.
His next assignment was to the naval station in Guam, which was significantly damaged by a typhoon in May 2023. His time on the Truman, besides the four months of combat, also included stops in Norway, France and Greece and a crossing of the Arctic Circle.
Being in the United States for an extended period will allow Father Swartz more time to come home to Columbus than has been available to him since being with the Navy.
“I am excited that this is the first time in quite a while that I will be able to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving with my family in the same year. Usually, it is one or the other, or even sometimes neither of them,” he said.
“I write extensively and send letters to a wide correspondence; there is not always the luxury of connectivity or phone signal. I am hoping to get back to Columbus in November and also for the upcoming SEEK conference in January.”
Father Swartz is grateful to have a relatively quiet period in which to wind down after the stress he has been through.
“Each deployment and duty station is unique in its needs and how a priest can be impactful,” he said. “Right now, I am focusing on achieving a bit of stability now that this most recent deployment has concluded by visiting family and the Diocese of Columbus, renewing my praying and regaining a better physical lifestyle. Deployments are difficult and can throw off everything from prayer to nutrition, despite being diligent.
“One new development is that I was recently selected to be promoted to lieutenant commander, which was a surprise as I was not even considered to be ‘in zone’ for consideration. This has highlighted the need of not just having priests in the military, but priests also positioned within the military to advise and help shape the cultural and ethical development of the armed forces.”
Statistics provided by the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA show that there are 337 Catholic chaplains serving 220 U.S. military installations in 29 nations, with one priest for every 1,800 service members. There are 1.8 million Catholics in the military, representing 25 percent of all those in the services, but only 6 percent of military chaplains are Catholic.
An aircraft carrier the size of the Truman has a crew of about 5,500 sailors, depending on the situation. Father Swartz said that during its recently concluded deployment, “Catholics were the largest congregation aboard the carrier and Sunday Mass would have around 100 individuals, give or take. Each Sunday was a different sampling of people due to availability because the aircraft carrier never sleeps. Something is always occurring.
“For example, if the pilots were out flying, then they obviously could not make the Sunday Masses but would show up for daily Mass Monday or whenever they returned. An alarm went off during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday and all I could do was yell ‘Whatever this is, as soon as it’s over, we will continue Mass’ and sure enough, an hour later we resumed Mass. You have to be as flexible as you can and roll with the punches.
“There were five chaplains aboard the same aircraft carrier I was on and every smaller ship (in his fleet) had one chaplain. I was not just the only Catholic priest on the carrier but the only priest in the entire strike group. So I would take a helicopter every week or so and fly to as many of the various cruisers and destroyers in our fleet as I could to bring the sacraments to the Catholic sailors. I must have made close to 30 flights this last deployment.
“Daily Mass takes place in the ship’s chapel, but Sunday Mass is so large we have to do it in the ship’s foc’sle, which is where the anchor chains are kept. On the destroyers and cruisers, we have Mass wherever we can find space.”
The Truman is one of 10 U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers considered part of the Nimitz class of vessels, named after Adm. Chester Nimitz, the Navy’s commander in chief in World War II. “The Nimitz class is roughly 3½ football fields long and is roughly the size of the Empire State Building laying on its side,” Father Swartz said. “If you imagine two nuclear power plants with a hotel full of sailors and then an airport slapped on as the roof, that is the idea behind the Nimitz class.”
Father Swartz is always available to his “congregation” of 5,500, most of them men, and said, “There is no popular topic among sailors when they come to talk to me. Topics can range from homesickness to confession to personal development to relational issues to stress from combat. It is not just the Catholic sailors who seek out their chaplain, but the whole crew.
“There is no such thing as a general workday on a deployed ship. I try to maintain a few concrete places in my schedule for daily Mass at the same time, food, sleep and working out. As for my private prayer and study, I have to be adaptive and creative sometimes on how I make time for that. The key is always being ‘Semper Gumby’ or ‘always flexible.’”
Anyone wishing to contact Father Swartz may send him an email message at dswartz@columbuscatholic.org. “Email is the best way to contact me, or someone can simply contact the Diocese of Columbus who can then forward messages to me,” he said.
“Since we are back in port, we are not accepting care packages for the crew, since we would prefer those efforts go towards other ships that are currently deployed, though I do appreciate the offer.”
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