Catch-22 543this source of solace and also explores its limits. Not
only do combat soldiers question their own faith, but
they also doubt the proprietors of the faith sent to
minister to the men.
There’s an old saying, “There are no atheists
in foxholes.” Atheists and the devout populate the
island of Pianosa equally in Catch-22. Catch-22’s
treatment of religion and faith is both comical and
tragic. Yossarian is a devout atheist who believes
in an incompetent creator. He attacks an entity he
does not believe exists for allowing such cruelty
and inhumanity in His finest creation, which is
supposed to be reflective of Himself. Yossarian says
to Lieutenant Scheisskopf ’s wife, an unbeliever as
well, “What a colossal immortal blunderer! When
you consider the opportunity and power He had to
really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little
mess He made of it instead. His sheer incompetence
is almost staggering.” She retorts that the God that
she doesn’t believe in is merciful and kind. Faith and
God provide no consolation to Yossarian, but rather
an outlet to vent his frustration at the war, Cathcart,
and Catch-22. He views God as part of the prob-
lem, not the solution, and his atheistic views are not
altered by the end of the novel.
The chaplain, of course, begins the novel as a
believer. His spiritual decline begins as he sees the
military bureaucracy led by Colonel Cathcart cor-
rupt faith and exploit it for their personal advance-
ment. At one point, Cathcart summons the chaplain
and tells him he wants to start a prayer session
before every mission not for any altruistic goal of
consoling the men before they fly off to fight and
perhaps die, but so they will bomb more effectively.
Now, I want you to give a lot of thought to
the kind of prayers we’re going to say. I don’t
want anything heavy or sad. I’d like you to
keep it light and snappy, something that will
send the boys out feeling pretty good . . . Your
job is to lead us in prayer, and from now on
you’re going to lead us in prayer for a tighter
bomb pattern before every mission. Is that
clear?Cathcart seizes religion and faith as a weapon of
war and manipulates the chaplain, a man of God
and peace, to support and direct the killing of men
and women with divine consent. The chaplain’s faith
begins to unravel as he sees how even pure faith can be
corrupted, and he struggles to understand the inverted
values of war, where killing is considered a virtue.
The chaplain begins to questions if there is even
a God, as Yossarian does, and if so, how could he
ever be sure of His existence. He thinks, “Was there
a true faith, or a life after death? With what matters
did God occupy Himself in all the infinite aeons
before the Creation.”
The chaplain resents the alienation that
accompanies his calling and his commission. The
soldiers act and speak differently around him because
he is the “chaplain,” and that isolation furthers his
doubts. He begins to wonder if he wouldn’t have
been better off enlisting in the infantry and taking
his chances. He begins to doubt the foundations of
the Christian faith, thinking,There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible
was a book and so were Bleak House, Trea-
sure Island, Ethan Frome, and The Last of the
Mohicans. Did it indeed seem probable, as
he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the
answers to the riddles of creation would be
supplied by people too ignorant to under-
stand the mechanics of rainfall? There were
no miracles; prayers went unanswered, and
misfortune tramped with equal brutality on
the virtuous and the corrupt.The joy with which people like Milo and Cathcart
inflict suffering with impunity and the way they
exploit the war for profit and career ascent, pushes
the chaplain to question everything he has come to
believe and to serve.
The destructive nature of war knows no bound-
aries. Human life, human sanity, a foundational faith
in the kindness of humanity, and even institution-
alized religion are not beyond the domain of the
carnage—they are just casualties of war.
Drew McLaughlinSuFFerinG in Catch-22
Death and suffering are constant and inescapable
realities of war. Their specters haunt all soldiers and