{"id":12895,"date":"2025-04-14T14:58:58","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T18:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=12895"},"modified":"2025-04-14T14:58:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T18:58:58","slug":"midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored.html","title":{"rendered":"Midshipmen Cheer After Transportation Secretary Duffy Has Jesus Painting Restored"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_12898\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12898\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12898\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/Merchant-Marine-Academy_credit-US-Coast-Guard.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12898\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. Coast Guard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Midshipmen at U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) in Kings Point, New York were roaring with applause during a speech by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Duffy made an appearance at USMMA on April 3 and spoke during the annual Battle Standard Dinner, when he brought up a painting of Jesus that had been removed from the main floor of the building. It had originally been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/religious-complaint-forces-us-marine-academy-to-cover-up-painting-of-jesus.html\">covered up<\/a> with a white curtain after the USMMA received a complaint letter from \u00a0Michael \u201cMikey\u201d Weinstein, founder of the The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) stating he had received complaints about the painting\u2019s religious nature.<\/p>\n<p>The painting is entitled \u201cChrist on Water\u201d and was painted in 1947 by Hunter Wood, a merchant mariner himself. The paining had first been placed in a basic training school chapel in California before being moved to the USMMA in New York. The room it had resided in was a chapel until 1961. Weinstein\u2019s complaint against the painting noted that other meetings were held in the room, thus meaning the room was not strictly religious in nature. After being covered up with a curtain for some time, the painting was eventually moved to the building\u2019s flood-prone basement.<\/p>\n<p>Duffy addressed the controversy during his speech and demanded the painting be brought back upstairs. \u201cCan we bring Jesus up from the basement? Let\u2019s not put Jesus in the basement! Let\u2019s get him out! Let\u2019s bring him up!\u201d said Duffy, a devout Catholic. His suggestion was met with prolonged applause, leading Duffy to add, \u201cYou want Jesus up from the basement? All right, great!\u201d He also remarked, \u201cThat was the loudest applause we got.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Two midshipman, speaking under the condition of anonymity, told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/midshipmen-erupt-when-duffy-demands-jesus-painting-be-restored.html\"><em>The Christian Post<\/em><\/a> what the painting means to them. One said he had received comfort from the painting\u2019s presence, praying under it during times he was worried about failing. \u201cI remember many times when I used to pray underneath that painting when I was on the verge of failing a class, or I had big tests or I was worried about something. I&#8217;ve prayed underneath that painting when it used to be in Wiley Hall,\u201d he said. \u201cSo to me, it&#8217;s a very significant, important painting, and I think it&#8217;s an important part of the school&#8217;s history.&#8221; Another midshipman said the painting inspired the Honor Board meetings held in the room while students would consider possible violations of the school\u2019s honor code. &#8220;And people would look up to that painting and say, &#8216;Everything&#8217;s going to be all right. Jesus is looking after me, just like He&#8217;s looking after these sailors who are washed up on a boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean.'&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Midshipmen at U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) in Kings Point, New York were roaring with applause during a speech by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Duffy made an appearance at USMMA on April 3 and spoke during the annual Battle Standard Dinner, when he brought up a painting of Jesus that had been removed from the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":12898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Midshipmen Cheer After Transportation Secretary Duffy Has Jesus Painting Restored<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Midshipmen cheered as Sec. Sean Duffy called for a beloved painting of Jesus to be brought back upstairs at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Midshipmen Cheer After Transportation Secretary Duffy Has Jesus Painting Restored\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Midshipmen cheered as Sec. 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Sean Duffy called for a beloved painting of Jesus to be brought back upstairs at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Midshipmen Cheer After Transportation Secretary Duffy Has Jesus Painting Restored","og_description":"Midshipmen cheered as Sec. Sean Duffy called for a beloved painting of Jesus to be brought back upstairs at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2025-04-14T18:58:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/Merchant-Marine-Academy_credit-US-Coast-Guard.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored.html","name":"Midshipmen Cheer After Transportation Secretary Duffy Has Jesus Painting Restored","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/midshipmen-cheer-after-transportation-secretary-duffy-has-jesus-painting-restored.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/Merchant-Marine-Academy_credit-US-Coast-Guard.jpg","datePublished":"2025-04-14T18:58:58+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-14T18:58:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Midshipmen cheered as Sec. 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