A former Ottumwa councilman opened Tuesday’s city council meeting with a prayer that ended in the phrase “Hail Satan,” and a local pastor stood up and tried to undo it before the agenda started.
Matt Dalbey, a resident and former member of the council, gave the invocation at City Hall. The meeting video showed him asking those who wanted to take part to stand, then beginning, “Let us pray. Dear dark father.”
The prayer asked those present to stand “unbowed” by “arcane doctrines born of fearful minds,” to “embrace the luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge,” and to judge people by their actions rather than “arbitrary social norms.” He closed with, “It is done. Hail Satan.”
The council and staff then recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
Dalbey told the Ottumwa Courier in a private message that the text is used by the Satanic Temple of Iowa, of which he is a member, and that it “has nothing to do with the belief in a satanic deity.”
The Outtumwa Courier said the group describes itself as “resolutely non-theistic.”
Rick Bick, pastor of New Life Center, spoke next, demanding that the council take action to undo the damage caused by Dalbey’s prayer.
“Let’s just reverse this curse that was put on our city. That ‘Hail Satan’ is not welcome here,” Bick said.
Order Alexander Pagani’s New Book, “Discerning the Demonic” on Amazon.com!
Council member Cara Galloway told him the public-comment period was the place for that.
Bick said it could not wait. “It needs to be done now. That was a curse put on the city. Most of you know that, and we need to just stop and reverse it.”
Over Galloway’s objections, Mayor Benjamin Foote called for 30 seconds of silence “to reflect on whatever it is we need to reflect on.”
The Outtumwa Courier reported that the city council adopted an invocation policy Jan. 20, allowing meetings to be “opened with an invocation to aid in additional guidance and blessings for the City and all its citizens.”
Galloway cast the lone vote opposing the policy.
The policy acknowledged respect for “the diversity of both organized and unorganized religious denominations, as well as other faiths, belief systems, or the lack thereof.”
The city’s invocation list shows Dalbey, listed with no congregation, was booked for Oct. 6.
At the end of the meeting, Galloway said this was the case she had warned about. Opening with an invocation meant allowing views the council might not share, she said, and answering one was “a slippery slope” toward a lawsuit and toward more objections. “We need to remember that we are up here to be neutral.”
City administrator Philip Rath said Wednesday on KBIZ’s “Dialogue” that an open policy means the city does not know what a speaker will say, and that narrowing it could invite a suit. He said a revision to the policy was possible.
Libs of TikTok posted a clip of the “Dear dark father” opening and the “Hail Satan” close.
That post had 1.8 million views by Wednesday afternoon on social media platform X.
To watch the city council meeting in full, click here (Editor’s Note: mild language and disturbing themes).
This article originally appeared on The Western Journal and is reposted with permission.
