The Chaplain of the United States Senate opens each session of the United States Senate with a prayer, and provides and coordinates religious programs and pastoral care support for Senators, their staffs, and their families. The Chaplain is appointed by a majority vote of the members of the Senate on a resolution nominating an individual for the position. The three most recent nominations have been submitted based on a bipartisan search committee although that procedure is not required.
Chaplains are elected as individuals and not as representatives of any religious community, body, or organization. As of 2011, all Senate Chaplains have been Christian but can be members of any religion or faith group. Guest Chaplains, recommended by Senators to deliver the session's opening prayer in place of the Senate Chaplain, have represented "all the world's major religious faiths."
The current Chaplain, Barry C. Black, a retired Navy Rear Admiral and former Chief of Navy Chaplains, is the first African-American and the first Seventh Day Adventist to hold the position.
Read more about Chaplain Of The United States Senate: Duties, History, Selection, Constitutionality, Controversies, Current Chaplain, List of Senate Chaplains, Demographics
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“A chaplain is the minister of the Prince of Peace serving the host of the God of War—Mars. As such, he is as incongruous as a musket would be on the altar at Christmas. Why, then, is he there? Because he indirectly subserves the purpose attested by the cannon; because too he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“I do not know that the United States can save civilization but at least by our example we can make people think and give them the opportunity of saving themselves. The trouble is that the people of Germany, Italy and Japan are not given the privilege of thinking.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At first I intended to become a student of the Senate rules and I did learn much about them, but I soon found that the Senate had but one fixed rule, subject to exceptions of course, which was to the effect that the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)