Coming home to a community of faith at the U.S. Naval Academy

WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- When Una Johnson arrived in the fall of 2023 at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, from her home in Washington state, she was struck by the number of her classmates attending Catholic liturgies.

For Johnson, who came from a nondenominational Christian background, watching so many of her friends take part in Catholic activities "planted a little seed in me."

She was later invited to her first Mass on Easter Vigil. It made a strong impression. The experience was very different from the Protestant services she had previously attended.

"Over the summer I started to look and listen to different people speak about the Catholic faith," even seeking out debates on YouTube about the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, she said. She felt "the Catholic was right every time."

Meanwhile, she traveled to Rome in the summer of 2024 and witnessed "the beauty of the Catholic faith," observing people "going into confessionals and getting on their knees, praying rosaries."

"While I was visiting St. Peter's Basilica, there was actually a Mass going on," she told OSV News. "I was able to observe the Mass and hear everyone singing the hymns, and it was just so beautiful."

Back at the Naval Academy, the 20-year-old quizzed a Catholic friend about her remaining questions about the faith. She ultimately made the decision to return to the Easter Vigil Mass this spring, but this time to enter the Catholic Church.

And she's not the only one. Her Order of Christian Initiation of Adults class started with 18 students and has expanded to 36.

"I can't wait," she said of entering the church. "I really, really want to take the Eucharist and every time I just get more and more excited for it."

"I think I really knew after I went to Mass for the first time," she said of her decision to enter the church. "I just really found the beauty and the reverence there." Classmates inviting her to daily Mass was a "big pivotal point" in her journey to the faith, she added.

"It's pretty special to walk into Mass and get there early and just see my classmates on their knees praying," she said. On holy days of obligation, "I see our chapel filled with midshipmen going at lunch and it just shows how serious they are and how important this is to all of us."

In December, Johnson attended an Army vs. Navy football game where the Catholic midshipmen prayed a rosary with the West Point cadets at halftime. The event was the first rosary she ever prayed, and she said the gathering was an "incredible" moment, with 60 students in attendance.

She believes "everyone really leans into their faith" at the academy because "we know that we can't depend on ourselves," particularly during the difficult beginning period of Plebe Summer.

"A lot of people who might not have gone to Mass regularly growing up" return to practicing their faith. Deepening friendships support that, as many see their friends going to Mass every Sunday. "You want to join in and you realize that it's important," she said.

Johnson, a third class midshipman and English major, also credits the Catholic Midshipmen Club and the Fellowship of Catholic University Students with helping the academy's vibrant faith community to flourish. She spoke with OSV News in January at FOCUS's 2025 SEEK conference in Washington.

There are approximately 1,566 midshipmen who have identified themselves as Catholic, a media relations specialist for the Naval Academy told OSV News via email. That is over a third of the total student body of roughly 4,460.

While the year the Catholic Midshipmen Club began is unclear, a 1940 academy yearbook shows a Newman Club described as "an organization of the Catholic midshipmen" with a choir, "altar service," bulletin, and weekly meetings for discussions and lectures. The Catholic Midshipmen Club is "most likely" the same club which underwent a name change, according to the academy. References to the Catholic Midshipmen Club under that name date back to the 1990s.

Grace Sullivan, chief of staff for the Catholic Midshipmen Club and a second class midshipman at the academy, told OSV News at the SEEK conference that she was very impressed with the "vibrant, growing community" of Catholics. A Catholic from Indiana, Sullivan sees her classmates practicing "missionary discipleship" in sports teams, groups and activities, which attracts others to the faith.

The Catholic Midshipmen Club includes volunteer activities such as monthly visits to the Little Sisters of the Poor's nearby home for the elderly. Sullivan added that the FOCUS missionaries on campus provide a "welcoming, warm community" and help students "get away for a little bit and reset."

She said the Catholic community at the academy is reflected in Proverbs 27:17: "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."

"I am surrounded by the most 'on fire' Catholics I've ever been surrounded with, and they're amazing people. We all are striving to ultimately get to heaven and serve our God while on this earth," Sullivan said, "but we've all found a common vocation to do that through the military. So, we're all on this very similar journey and I find myself so inspired by those around me."

Joshua Fatzinger, 33, has been a FOCUS missionary at the Naval Academy for three years and was previously at the University of Maryland. He has been inspired by the dedication of the Catholic midshipmen who "have limited free time, and you can see them sacrificing to go to the sacraments, and also they love going to confession."

One difference in ministering to the student body at the academy compared to other schools, he said, is that the midshipmen essentially have full-time jobs with governance roles at the academy. There are 36 different companies of about 100 to 120 students each.

He believes that the nature of a calling to military life makes the midshipmen uniquely attuned to "the big questions" in life. "Their job trainings are very dangerous, comparatively speaking," he pointed out. "They kind of get this urgency."

He said that because of the academy's structure, Catholics form friendships with those in their companies from all different backgrounds.

"That's why there's so many conversions," Fatzinger said, because "everyone knows a really solid Catholic."

He recalled that when the captain of the lightweight football team started a Bible study for his team, "all the other teams saw it and wanted the same thing." His study now "has up to 30 or 40 men," including some from other faiths and even from atheist and agnostic backgrounds.

In some ways, Fatzinger is uniquely equipped to help students with their vocational paths as they explore these questions. He and his wife met through FOCUS and have four children under age 7, including a son with cerebral palsy. "We host up to 70 midshipmen at the different parties at our house," he said, noting that the majority hail from far-away states. Many come from large families and value the time in a family setting, he noted.

Amid discussions of discernment with midshipmen, Fatzinger offers an example of the reality of married life with kids, but he also speaks from his experience of having been in seminary for three years.

He said Catholics who take the faith seriously, like Johnson and Sullivan, are "a light" to their peers at the military academy where "you stick out as a Catholic and you have these hard conversations."

Because of the difficulty of getting into a service academy, the midshipmen are often highly dedicated and motivated young people who bring that intensity to their faith lives, he said. In his experience, once the midshipmen have an "encounter with Christ in morning prayer, in the chapel or at daily Mass, or through a Bible study, they're ready to go," and they evangelize to their peers because "they can lead a platoon into battle, they can lead a small group Bible study."