The House Chaplain

It came as quite a surprise to me the other day when I read that the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy, a Roman Catholic priest, was fired from his position as Chaplain to the House of Representatives by the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. Why exactly Father Conroy was fired has not been made entirely clear, although the Speaker did insist that religion—and I know how odd this is to say—that religion wasn’t a factor here really and that he, the Speaker, although fully identified with Evangelical Protestant Christianity, was not prompted to act merely because he did not wish to have a Catholic priest as “his” chaplain. (Father Conroy was originally appointed in 2011 by Roman Catholic then-Speaker John A. Boehner.) Another suggestion, widely cited, was that the priest crossed a line—at least as far as the Speaker of the House was concerned—when, during the recent debate about the overhaul of the income tax system, he prayed in public that our lawmakers act to “guarantee that there are not winners and losers under the new tax laws, but [rather] benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”  But it seems to me at best unlikely that such an innocuous prayer could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. (What should the chaplain have prayed for? That our lawmakers create a new tax code that will only benefit some specific Americans but not the country as a whole?) And it is so that Speaker Ryan took issue with that prayer, admonishing the chaplain for failing to stay above the political fray and apparently for also forgetting that he was in place solely to pray publicly for things so little contentious that no one could possibly care what the prayer said anyway. So maybe that was the reason!

The House itself responded along party lines almost to a person: of the 148 representatives to sign a letter to Speaker Ryan insisting that he reveal the precise reason or reasons that he dismissed Father Conroy, only one sole signatory, North Carolina representative Walter B. Jones, was a Republican. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, raised the interesting question of whether the Speaker actually had the authority to fire the House Chaplain in the first place. And she also revealed that Speaker Ryan had offered her a specific reason for wishing to be rid of the House Chaplain, one unrelated to that prayer about the tax code: because he had given an interview to The National Journal in which he spoke openly about sexual and workplace harassment issues, and in which he raised the possibility that the entire Congress was in the grip of a spiritual crisis the specific nature of which he did not identify.

I have no specific opinion about Father Conroy’s qualifications, having neither ever met the man nor heard him speak. But it isn’t the specific details regarding his dismissal that intrigue me, although I do have to admit that I’m curious how this will all play itself out. No, naïve citizen that I am, I was surprised to learn that the House of Representatives even has a chaplain hired (and paid a salary) to serve as its spiritual leader. Who knew?

Obviously, the ideal would be to have a House chaplain who has no specific allegiance to any specific religion. But, given that a chaplain is by definition an ordained individual trained in some specific faith tradition, seeking a chaplain who merely represented “religion” but not any specific one of the world’s religions would be something like trying to hire an orator to deliver an address in “language” but not in any specific one of the world’s languages. And yet, given the allegedly iron-clad wall erected by the founders between church and state, isn’t that exactly what we all should want, a chaplain whose allegiance is to “religion” itself, but not to any specific one of them? But wishing for that specific (impossible) thing means assuming Congress wants or needs a chaplain at all.

The first thing to know is that this all goes back a real long ways. After being prodded to action by Samuel Adams, the Second Continental Congress appointed one Jacob Duché, an Anglican priest, as their chaplain on September 5, 1774. There wasn’t even lip-service paid to the concept of nonpartisanship: Father Duché led the Congress in Anglican worship that day and delivered some extemporaneous prayers rooted in his Anglican tradition. Later, after the Constitution called into being a bicameral legislature, Congress resolved that there should be two chaplains, one for the House and one for the Senate. And, indeed, starting in 1789, chaplains were called upon to open both houses of Congress with a prayer. As the years pressed on, chaplains from different Protestant denominations were appointed to both houses of the legislature. This seemed fair to some, but not to all—James Madison, for one, was opposed to the whole practice on the grounds that, since it would be unthinkable to invite a Catholic priest or a Quaker to serve as chaplain, it was not in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution to invite solely Protestant clergy to participate. (Note that Madison was not proposing that the chaplaincy actually be opened up to Catholics or Quakers, just opining that because it was unimaginable to do so the best course forward would be to cancel the whole concept and have no one at all in the position.) I can’t even begin to imagine what people who considered the appointment of a Catholic priest to be inconceivable would have had to say about the notion of a rabbi serving as House chaplain, let alone an imam or a Native American shaman. Or rather, I can. There have, at any rate, been fifty-two different individuals who have served as House Chaplain. All were men. All were Christian. All but one were Protestants. Probably, I should hold onto my day job even if the position is currently vacant.

The Senate chaplaincy has a similar history. The Senate, meeting for the first time in New York in the spring of 1789, selected Reverend Samuel Provoost, the Episcopal Bishop of New York, to serve as its chaplain. This set a pattern and, when the Senate moved to Philadelphia the following year, that city’s Episcopal bishop was appointed chaplain. To date, there have been in total sixty-two chaplains of the Senate. All have been men. All have been Christians, all but one Protestants. The current chaplain of the Senate is Rear Admiral Barry C. Black (Ret.), a Protestant minister and former Chief of Navy Chaplains.
Over the years, there have been regular challenges to the practice. (For a detailed account of those challenges, click here to see an essay on the topic by Christopher C. Lund published in the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 17:4 and a truly fascinating survey of our nation’s ever-evolving attitudes towards religion.) But none, including one suit that got all the way to the Supreme Court, has been successful. I certainly do not expect any to be successful in the future. But, contrary to what readers might expect, I do not wish that the chaplaincy were more inclusive and that, say, rabbis such as myself were invited to participate along with the clergy of all faiths represented in our American mosaic. If we’re going to have a chaplain serving Congress, I suppose he or she should be chosen from the full spectrum of religions to which Americans adhere. But far better, and far more principled in my opinion, would be the decision to dispense with the chaplaincy entirely.

It is never in the best interests of Jewish Americans—or, for that matter, of any Americans—for the wall between church and state to be breached, and that is so even in when the breach in question appears to be relatively benign and inconsequential. Why should anyone care, after all, if someone stands up when the Senate opens to recite some prayer that the members of the Senate either do or don’t listen to, but which none is obliged to take to heart or even to consider in passing? When considered in that specific light, the issue appears hardly to matter at all. Even I think that!

But when considered in terms of the larger picture, it does indeed matter. Several years ago, I explained in one of my weekly letters why I found the White House seder introduced during the Obama years so irritating. (To revisit those remarks, click here.) I also find the White House Christmas tree inappropriate to the point of almost being vaguely threatening. And I certainly do not, in some peculiar calculus of impropriety, find comfort in the willingness of the last few presidents to host White House Chanukah Menorah lighting ceremonies.

In my ideal version of America, the wall between church and state would truly be impermeable. The President has private quarters in the White House—that is where he or she should celebrate the festivals of his or her faith and where the symbols of those festivals should be displayed and enjoyed, just the same as in anyone’s private home. The Congress, on the other hand, should assert its impartiality by showing no favoritism to any faith at all.  And to imagine that the fact that all 114 of our congressional chaplains have been Christian men is not overtly suggestive of precisely the kind of favoritism (and gender bias) our national ethos supposedly derides, discourages, and disdains—that seems to me to be, at best, a fantasy rooted in our desire to be something that we have not yet quite become.

I have no real idea why Speaker Ryan dismissed the House Chaplain, but I wish he would move forward in the wake of that dismissal and suggest that the position itself be abolished along with its parallel in the Senate. Or, at the very least, that it should be filled by someone able to deliver an opening prayer in “language” itself…but not in any specific one.