Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Church and State, called the new directive a "proper resolution."
Government agencies that use public funds "to provide chaplains -- that is, spiritual services to employees, volunteers, schoolchildren and crime victims, and these are real incidents around the country -- are going to find themselves in constitutional quicksand," he said.
Shannan Villegas, however, was not cheering. The 30-year-old Perris resident first met a CDF chaplain last year when her firefighter husband was battling brain cancer. She said she was "very disappointed" with the elimination of the uniformed chaplaincy.
"You'd figure you'd want to say a little prayer before you go to a fire, because you never know if you're going to come back," she said.
Villegas said she thinks the new policy restricts compassionate firefighters from comforting their colleagues or community members in all the ways they know how.
"It's just that they did a lot for us, and we've seen them do a lot for other people," she said. "As long as they can stay together and do this, I guess it's better than nothing."
