Starting April 22, chaplains of the Phoenix Fire and Police Departments will offer a nondenominational invocation at the start of formal City Council meetings.
The Phoenix City Clerk will designate a chaplain to conduct each invocation on a rotating basis. The proposal to continue in this manner was passed in a 6-2 vote during the City Council meeting on Wednesday.
Mayor Greg Stanton and District 8 Councilwoman Kate Gallego were the only members of City Council who voted against the new rule for invocation procedures.
This decision was made in response to the Feb. 17 City Council meeting, where a Satanist group requested to do a prayer invocation, causing public outcry from several City Council members including District 6 Councilman Sal DiCiccio. In response to the group’s request, the council passed a moment of silence to replace invocation prayer at the beginning of formal meetings.
DiCiccio shared his support for the return of invocation prayer.
“This whole idea of freedom of expression has turned into basically a banning of all freedom of religious expression,” DiCiccio said. “It’s okay to have other faiths come in, we’ve had it here before. So this institutionalizes it and brings it back.”
Rule 14, introduced at the March 2 City Council meeting, maintains prayer invocations at meetings. In the absence of a designated chaplain, the Mayor can call for a moment of silent prayer and reflection.
The city clerk is to assign invocations to a chaplain of the fire department or police department while also providing instructions in accordance with the Guidelines for Civic Occasions by the National Conference for Community and Justice.
“We were able to bring in volunteers that are part of the fire and the police department,” DiCiccio said.
DiCiccio said public invocation is constitutional and has been in this country for over 200 years.
“The Supreme Court has already ruled that it’s legal to do that as long as you have a process and a place, which we now have,” DiCiccio said.
The majority of attendees at Wednesday’s meeting were in favor of reestablishing prayer invocations prior to formal City Council meetings.
Larrie Fraley, global outreach pastor for Christ’s Church of the Valley, voiced his support for the new procedures for invocation.
“I come today just asking that you please vote in favor of reinstating prayer at the beginning of City Council,” Fraley said.
Jeremy Helfgot, founder of J.M. Helfgot Communications, opposed the new process for prayer invocations because he views it as providing a lack of religious representation.
“There is a wonderfully diverse city in the community of Phoenix with many faiths and many beliefs represented,” Helfgot said. “By narrowing the scope, many of them are not going to have a voice in what is said in the implications of these council meetings.”
Contact the reporter at brianna.bradley@asu.edu.
