Sometimes public bodies begin the proceeding with a prayer. The United States Senate even has an official chaplain. Most prayers are notably unremarkable, but not all of them.

Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black showed his disapproval for the ongoing government shutdown during his morning prayer recently. Black, a former Navy rear admiral, has been the Senate Chaplain for over a decade.

In his prayer before the Senate, he asked God to “save us from the madness,” the New York Times reported.

“We acknowledge our transgressions, our shortcomings, our smugness, our selfishness and our pride,” he continued. “Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable.”

He asked God to forgive members of Congress.

“Remove from them that stubborn pride which imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism,” he said. “Forgive them the blunders they have committed.”

With a prayer like that, you wonder if some Senators might offer to file an Amicus brief to support a ban on prayer at government meetings.

On November 6th, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument regarding prayer at government meetings. The case could overrule or limit Marsh v. Chambers, which allowed prayer by a paid minister.

In Galloway, volunteer private citizens said the prayers and the 2nd Circuit said that practice was unconstitutional. According to the 2nd Circuit opinion, the prayers were occasionally diverse, but were largely Christian. SCOTUS blog and the 2nd Circuit opinion sum up the case this way:

“The town’s desire to mark the solemnity of its proceedings with a prayer is understandable; Americans have done just that for more than two hundred years. But when one creed dominates others — regardless of a town’s intentions — constitutional concerns come to the fore.” The problem for officials of the town of Greece was that the practice appeared almost entirely Christian. No real effort was made to let the community know that other religions were welcome, and officials made no attempt, themselves, to reach out to other faiths to encourage them to take a turn delivering the prayers.

“There is no doubt that the town seeks to convey respect for the invocations given at its meetings. But efforts to show respect for a belief espoused in a legislative prayer entail a concomitant obligation to demonstrate respect for the beliefs of others.”

— Judge Guido Calabresi in Town of Greece v. Galloway, Second Circuit