Category:Religion at the United States Naval Academy

Organized religion at the USNA is the domain of the Naval Academy Chaplain Corps, a branch of the United States Navy Chaplain Corps. The latter took its origin from the Second Article of the United States Navy Regulations enacted by the Second Continental Congress in 1775, requiring twice-daily services and a Sunday sermon aboard every ship of the new United States Navy. The spirit of this regulation is carefully preserved in the requirement that all midshipmen must attend services on Sunday morning (unless excused). As the chaplains are officers of the Navy, their policies and actions fall under the jurisdiction of the Navy. Indeed, the first chaplains had educational duties as well. It was they who recommended the establishment of a Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Passed in 1791, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution asserts "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Thomas Jefferson interpreted the non-establishment of religion as Separation of church and state, using the term "a wall of separation between church and state." At the Naval Academy, the chaplains are both officers and ministers; i.e., the wall is non-existent. Moreover, midshipmen are forbidden to bring matters before their congressman, criticism is suppressed by punishment, and any extended assembly is interpretable as mutiny, punishable, in the extreme, by death. Violations of civil rights, along with crimes such as rape and sexual harassment, however, are only violations and crimes if the Congress says they are in the Naval Code, or the President issues command policies to that effect, and no laws have been struck down or cases are pending in the Supreme Court. The issue of mandatory religion is brought up from time to time but so far the Chaplain Corps has been upheld as justified.

Today's chaplaincy at the USNA consists of a Command Chaplain, a Deputy Command Chaplain, six Battalion Chaplains , specialists, and staff, all located at the USNA Chaplain Center in Mitscher Hall. They have jurisdiction over the five churches on campus: the Naval Academy Chapel, where Protestant and Catholic services are conducted at different times on Sunday morning, St. Andrew's Chapel in the same building, the Naval Academy Jewish Chapel, and two small non-denominational chapels in the Rotunda dome of Bancroft Hall, used mainly for retreat, meditation, and counseling with a chaplain. Of course these meagre facilities do not begin to satisfy the commitment to freedom of religion, even though mandatory. Any midshipman therefore is allowed to select any church in Annapolis within walking distance as an alternative. This is not a private attendance. On Sunday morning a "church party" marches from the Academy to the church.