Volun-Told
Before we get to a great United States Marine Corps portmanteau, let’s make a critical point.
Good manners never need an apology!
Religious or theological good manners never need an apology.
There will be no apology here!
In a public gathering of believers, doubters and non-believers; of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and others; of Native Americans with distinct spiritual practices; of Catholics (in all their Roman and 23 Uniate rites); of denominational Christians and “non-denominational” (a term we’ve never fully understood) Christians and folks who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” there is never a need for a “religious leader” or “leader” of any type – most especially within the ranks of the U.S. military - to say anything approximating “in Jesus name we pray.”
It’s religious bad manners. Or a not-so-subtle assertion that “My religion and my God are better than yours.”
In fact, good manners would require that Jesus’ name be kept completely out of “invocations,” “benedictions,” and “prayers” in such gatherings.
“Eternal God,” “God of unending kindness,” “Creator God,” “You who are the source of our hope.” With thirty seconds of creative thinking, a thesaurus-worth of alternatives can easily be imagined.
As a prison chaplain (and the only Roman Catholic in the Florida-wide corps of more than seventy chaplains, where Catholics, especially Spanish-speaking Catholics, represented a significant percentage of the incarcerated population), I designed and presided over the dedication service for a new chapel.
Conscious that I had inaugurated Friday Muslim Jummah prayer and an Eid feast, invited the Aleph Institute to provide programs and special services for Jewish inmates, facilitated twice-a-year weekend “retreats” by Kairos Prison Ministry (an interdenominational offshoot of the Christian Cursillo movement), and opened the chapel to nearly a dozen outside Protestant groups, I invited a representative of Miccosukee Seminole Tribe of South Florida to open the chapel dedication by purifying the building with smoking sage. (The prison was so far into the Everglades that the Miccosukee were just about the closest “neighbors.”) The reaction of some of the evangelical and fundamentalist chaplains from “the system” mirrored that of Captain Renault in the black-and-white classic flick Casablanca.
Corrupt French Prefect of Police Louis Renault, a regular gambler at the café, is forced to shut down Rick’s Café Americain by German Major Heinrich Strasser. Having just been told that the café was a gambling site, he protests “I’m shocked. SHOCKED to find that gambling is going on here.”
The chaplains, who – by law – were supposed to serve all faiths and denominations were SHOCKED to learn that everyone doesn’t “pray in Jesus’ name.”
After some blatantly anti-Catholic (and really dirty) rigmarole, I was “re-assigned” to a Department of (in)Corrections facility in Orlando, temporarily living in a hotel and commuting to Miami on weekends. The Orlando “lead chaplain” was an India-born convert to evangelical Christianity who – in private, always in private – made no effort to hide his disdain for inmates who did not believe as he did – “freedom of religion be damned.”
My breaking point with him and the System came on a Friday night when he declared “The Jews are supposed to break their (Yom Kippur) fast on Sunday, but I’ll be damned if I’m coming in for that. They’ll have to wait ‘til Monday.”
[My general practitioner was more than happy to write a “doctor’s note” allowing me to use my well more-than-one-thousand hours of sick and vacation time. The best part of that was that for every eighty hours of sick and/or vacation time I used I earned a dozen more. When I formally left the Department, they owed me four hours. As my inmate clerks used to say, “It ain’t smart to mess with Father Flynn.”]
Founded almost simultaneously with the University in 1926 and with the acceptance of female members in 1985, Iron Arrow Honor Society is "The Highest Honor Attained at the University of Miami." The twice-yearly “tappings” of new members concludes with a luncheon. For fifteen years, I delivered the opening “invocations” and closing “benedictions” at the luncheons attended by student, faculty, administration and alumni honorees of every imaginable ethnic and cultural background. I would never have dreamed of praying “in Jesus’ name.” It would have been an insult to many members of "The Highest Honor Attained at the University of Miami."
As the substance abuse counselor at the University of Miami for eleven years and despite never wearing a Roman collar or referring to myself as “Father Flynn” in my counseling work, my “dual professions” – a term used by the Vice President for Student Affairs – were well known. As a result, there were times when I was called upon to preside at memorial services for students who died in accidents or from illness or through suicide. Only once – a Mass of the Resurrection in the Sigma Chi house for a Sigma Chi undergraduate killed in an alcohol-induced accident – did I ever use the name of Jesus; the Sigma Chis had asked for a Mass for their Brother.
In the “land of the free,” the First Amendment assures us “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” But no Congress, no administration or member of any administration should impose his/her religious beliefs on any American.
It appears that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth doesn’t quite get that idea; in May 2025, he initiated monthly Christian prayer services at the Pentagon. Hegseth belongs to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a conservative network of churches co-founded by the self-described christian nationalist Doug Wilson, which, among other elements of doctrine, emphasizes that wives should be “subject” to their husbands and husbands, as heads of the household, should exercise the right to vote for them. Hegseth invited Wilson to address his inaugural Pentagon prayer service.
After being introduced as “one of God’s mightiest men,” Secretary Hegseth opened his part in the Wednesday, March 25 Pentagon “Christian” worship services by quoting Psalm 18:37-42:
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed.
“I thrust them through so that they were not able to rise They fell under my feet,
for you equipped me with strength for the battle.
“You made those who rise against me sink under me.
“You made my enemies turn their backs to me, and those who hated me, I destroyed.
“They cried for help, but there was none to save. They cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them.
“I beat them fine as dust before the wind. I cast them out like the mire of the streets.”
Following the psalm the Secretary of Defense Hegseth explained that he was going to share a prayer that
“was sent to me by the chaplain who oversaw the Maduro raid. So, this was the prayer that he prayed, um, before that mission with those great Americans who conducted that mission. And he wanted to share it with me and I’d like to share it with the group today. So put yourself in the place of one of those couple hundred Americans about to undertake this audacious raid on the Iwo Jima looking at a lot of uncertainty in front of you and this was the passage and the pre-mission reading and the prayer that was read with them.
He proceeded to read
“Almighty God, who trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle, you who stirred the nations from the north against Babylon of old, making her land a desolation where none dwell, behold now the wicked who rise against your justice and the peace of the righteous. Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans, and break the teeth of the ungodly. By the blast of your anger, let the evil perish. Let their bulls go down to slaughter for their day has come, the time of their punishment. Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind.”
“Grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence. Surround them as a shield, protect the innocent and blameless in their midst. Make their arrows like those of a skilled warrior who returned not empty-handed. Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.
“Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. Preserve their lives, sharpen their resolve, and let justice be executed swiftly and without remorse that evil may be driven back and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them. For the wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ, King over all kings and amen.”
[EDITORS’ NOTE: U.S. Army Delta Force troops conducted the January 3, 2026 nighttime raid that resulted in the Venezuelan dictator’s capture inside the Fuerte Tiuna military base. In addition to an armada including the aircraft carrier USS Gerald. R. Ford and the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima, support units were launched from 20 different land-based installations and naval vessels and Dyess Air Force Base in Texas; the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Night Stalkers) provided helicopter transportation and tactical insertion of the ground operation; agents of the drug Enforcement Administration and FBI worked in collaboration with the special military forces; and the entire operation relied heavily on the cooperation of U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine and intelligence services. Hegseth has never named the “chaplain” who offered/provided him the “prayer” and it would have been geographically and tactically beyond the ability of a single chaplain to offer that prayer to/for all of the forces involved.]
Hegseth opened his remarks during an April 15 Pentagon prayer service by quoting Jesus’ – “…the poor have the good news preached to them… And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” The Secretary explained that he is “not a theologian” before introducing a prayer he claimed was “delivered from the lead mission planner of Sandy 1,” the rescue mission that located and extracted a weapons systems officer whose F-15E had been shot down over Iran almost 48 hours earlier. Hegseth prayed:
“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee, and amen.”
Like Hegseth, who mentioned Ezekiel 25:17 as an inspiration for his prayer, in the Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction, Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Jules Winnfield, had his take on the same Scripture passage as he addresses and tied and bound Brett::
“There’s this passage I’ve got memorized, sort of fits this occasion: Ezekiel 25:17: ‘The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!’”
Jules immediately aeriated Brett with the pistol he was holding.
Following the April Pentagon prayer session, The Los Angeles Times (“Hegseth recites ‘Pulp Fiction’ speech at Pentagon prayer service,” April 16, 2026, Gavin J. Quinton.) reported:
“Hegseth frequently has used his prayer sessions to call for violence in the ongoing Iran war. In last month’s sermon, he asked God to ‘grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence.’
“The services are not mandatory, a senior defense analyst with knowledge of Pentagon operations told The Times, but some who work closely with Hegseth’s office feel an ‘implied pressure’ to attend and ‘fill seats.’”
The United States Marine Corps has a portmanteau – a new word made by combining parts of two or more words - for Hegseth’s “not mandatory” Christian prayer or worship “services”: “volun-told” or “voluntold.” Pentagon officials and employees don’t “have to” attend but they know they’d better have their butts on one of the auditorium seats if they want to protect their careers.
On April 16, the day after Hegseth’s Pentagon sermon, during an apostolic journey to Bamenda, Cameroon in which he addressed the impact of armed conflicts in the region, Pope Leo XIV declared:
“Woe to those who manipulate religion
and the very name of God for their own military,
economic, and political gain,
dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth."