A routine city council meeting in Ottumwa, Iowa, was thrown into turmoil this week after a former council member delivered a satanic invocation that ended with a declaration of «Hail Satan,» prompting a local pastor to demand that officials reverse what he called a curse on the community.
Matt Dalbey, who previously served on the council and is a member of The Satanic Temple of Iowa, opened Tuesday's meeting with a prayer addressing the «dark father» and invoking the «Luciferian impulse to eat from the tree of knowledge.» The invocation concluded with the phrase «Hail Satan.»
After the council recited the Pledge of Allegiance and completed its roll call, Pastor Rick Bick of New Life Center interrupted the proceedings to insist that the council take immediate action. «Let's just reverse this curse that was put on our city,» Bick said. «That ending with 'Hail Satan' or 'Hail dark god,' that's not welcome here.»
Council member Cara Galloway attempted to direct Bick to save his comments for the public discussion portion of the meeting, but Bick pressed for an immediate response. «It needs to be done now,» he said. «I appreciate what Ms. Galloway is saying, but that was a curse put on the city. When he said 'Hail Satan'... most of you know that, and we need to just stop and reverse it.»
In response, Mayor Benjamin Foote requested 30 seconds of silence to allow for prayer or reflection, overruling Galloway's efforts to move the meeting forward. Foote later told Fox News Digital that the invocation does not represent the community. «This is not a reflection of our community,» he said. «As the mayor of my hometown in Iowa, I know the people of Ottumwa, and the invocation read at the start of Tuesday's meeting does not represent the faith or the values of families who call this city home.»
The controversy stems from an invocation policy the city adopted in January, according to The Ottumwa Courier. The policy states that it does not endorse any faith or religious denomination but is intended «to acknowledge and express the City Council's respect for the diversity of both organized and unorganized religious denominations, as well as other faiths, belief systems, or the lack thereof, represented and practiced among the citizens of the City of Ottumwa.»
Galloway, who had previously raised concerns about establishing invocations at council meetings, said after the meeting that the situation illustrated the risks she had warned about. «Opening with an invocation means allowing viewpoints that may not reflect our own, and responding to someone's invocation is a slippery slope to putting a financial liability on the taxpayers and allowing for others to object or respond,» she said. «And this is exactly why I had concerns about having an invocation when we first talked about it. And I think I even specifically referenced that having someone from the Church of Satan or a prayer about Satan when we talked about that, that this could happen, and we would need to allow it.»
She added that the council must remain neutral and allow diverse viewpoints because it has opened the door to invocations. «I just want to remind us that, again, sometimes things are said that we may not agree with... and while you're allowed to do the moment of silence and that kind of thing too, I think we've opened ourselves up for others to object or respond to others' invocations,» she said. «And we need to remember that we are up here to be neutral and allow viewpoints because we've opened up invocations.»
Dalbey, in a private message cited by The Ottumwa Courier, said the prayer is commonly used by The Satanic Temple but «has nothing to do with the belief in a satanic deity.»
Council member Bill Hoffman told Fox News Digital that he left the room when the prayer began and returned for the Pledge of Allegiance. He defended Dalbey's right to express his beliefs while distancing himself from the content. «I'm a Christian man with Christian values. That doesn't mean I don't want to observe his First Amendment right. It just means that I want to use my rights not to observe that,» Hoffman said. He added that he expects the invocation policy to be discussed in the future and noted that the council did not condone the content of the prayer.
The incident has reignited a broader debate over the role of religious invocations at government meetings and how officials balance inclusivity with community sensitivities. The city's invocation policy, adopted earlier this year, was designed to respect diverse belief systems, but the events of Tuesday's meeting have underscored the tensions that can arise when those beliefs clash in a public forum.