A delegation of religious and military leaders from Bosnia-Herzegovina discusses a chaplaincy program for their army with Institute staff and representatives of the U.S. Army.

or over 50 years, soldiers in the army of the former Yugoslavia were “absolutely forbidden to mention the word ‘God,’ ” notes Father Dusan Jovanovic, a Serbian Orthodox parish priest in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Perhaps their lack of spiritual and ethical education accounts for the staggering amount of murder and plundering done by the armies of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia in the recent wars in that region, he says.

Jovanovic was part of a delegation of eight religious and military leaders from the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina that met at the U.S. Institute of Peace on March 11. Participants discussed the importance of religious ministering to soldiers, the need to cultivate greater religious tolerance—particularly within official institutions—and related topics. The U.S. Army cosponsored the event, which was organized by David Little, senior scholar on religion, ethics, and human rights, and program officer Scott Hibbard. Representatives of several nongovernmental organizations working in Bosnia and of the U.S. Army chaplaincy program also attended the event. The deputy under secretary of the Army for international affairs hosted the Bosnian delegation March 9–13 for a review of the U.S. chaplaincy program and its applicability to the federation army.

The participants virtually all agreed that greater religious and cultural understanding is a precondition for integrating the armed forces of Bosnia and that a diverse chaplaincy program can help achieve those ends. Brigadier Veso Vegar of the federation Ministry of Defense and head of the delegation noted that the federation army already has a Muslim chaplaincy program in place and is developing a Roman Catholic program. There are only a small number of other faiths represented in the military, but the army plans to add chaplaincies to serve them and thus develop its diversity.

If religion is meant to teach tolerance, the U.S. Army chaplains provided a good example to the visiting delegation. Jovanovic said that during meetings at the Pentagon, “I was impressed by the extremely tolerant relationships between the chaplains, regardless of which religion they belonged to.” It was clear that the priority among the U.S. chaplains is to help each other and the soldiers, he said. “Our chaplains in the federation should be educated the same way.”

Nedzad Grabus, a member of the Islamic faculty in Sarajevo, said that each religion must teach its moral values, most importantly that all people are creatures of God, “otherwise man goes down to the level of the animal.” Achieving such tolerance “will be a slow process, but there is hope that we will have results.”

Father Anto Peric, a Roman Catholic priest in Sarajevo, said that the role of the chaplain is to use religious teachings to teach humanity, love, and forgiveness. Politicians in the Balkan region have misused religion for their own ends, and it’s time to put an end to such abuses, he concluded.

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