This morning, Dec 6, 2024, after months of trying to get a reply from the Royal Canadian Legion, SCS received an email from the Legion stating that the Chaplain’s Manual is now longer in use, and that it has been removed from their list of resources. We have no word about the insistence of having a religious chaplain at official Legion services, but we will pursue this.
Is this an SCS success? Who knows? We don’t have any dates to co-relate to our campaign. The best we could claim is influence so it goes into the good news column.
History
The Royal Canadian Legion publishes an Chaplain’s manual intended to standardize ceremonies for comrades of the Legion. I addition, the Legion insists that an official Legion ceremony must have a Religious leader in attendance. This creates problems for Legion members who wishes to have a secular ceremony, led by a Secular Humanist officiant.
SCS is trying to get the Legion to change its manual to be inclusive of non-believer rites, and to change its regulations to allow for ceremonies that are secular, and that require no religious chaplain to be in attendance.
We have written Legion President, Berkley Lawrence, and await his response.
Input from Legion members would have considerable influence. Please write President Lawrence, and ask him to make the Chaplain’s Manual inclusive of non-believers. Go to https://www.legion.ca/contact-us, and fill in their form.