Midshipmen erupt when Duffy demands Jesus painting be restored

Midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy erupted in raucous applause last week when Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy called for a painting of Jesus to be brought up from the flood-prone basement where it was placed during the Biden administration.

Multiple midshipmen at the federal service academy in Kings Point, New York, spoke to The Christian Post and said how much the painting means to them.

During remarks made at its annual Battle Standard Dinner on April 3, Duffy promised to “work my a– off” to ensure the increasingly dilapidated school would receive adequate funding, but drew the most vocal response when he asked for the Jesus painting to be restored.

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Midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy erupted in applause when @SecDuffy demanded a painting of Jesus saving merchant mariners be restored.

The Biden admin put a curtain over the painting before putting it in a flood-prone basement.

“Let’s bring Him up!” pic.twitter.com/qQvLKXKE5r

— Jon Brown (@JonBrownDC) April 9, 2025

“Can we bring Jesus up from the basement?” he asked, looking to the USMMA administration. “Let’s not put Jesus in the basement! Let’s get Him out! Let’s bring Him up!”

Duffy, a devout Roman Catholic, appeared somewhat taken aback by the enthusiastic response, which he allowed to linger before noting it was the loudest of his entire hour-long speech.

“You want Jesus up from the basement? Alright, great!” he said. “That was the loudest applause we got!”

One tweet of Duffy’s remarks received more than 560,000 views on X as of Thursday morning.

The historic painting “Christ on the Water” was relocated following a 2023 letter from Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who issued a “demand” to USSMA Superintendent Vice Admiral Joanna Nunan that she “expeditiously remove a massive, sectarian painting illustrating the supremacy of Jesus Christ” from the Elliot M. See Room inside Wiley Hall, which serves as an administrative building at USMMA.

The 1947 painting by Hunter Wood, a merchant mariner whose art drew on his own experiences of being lost at sea, was at first covered with a curtain during Academy meetings before it was ultimately relegated to a basement that midshipmen claimed was prone to flooding, according to Fox News Digital.

The move prompted a petition and letters to Nunan from figures such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and other members of Congress.

Duffy’s recent visit to the USMMA comes after complaints during the Biden administration that the service academy, formerly under Pete Buttigieg, had become “the last frontier of woke ideology,” according to Fox News Digital.

Two midshipmen at the USMMA who spoke to CP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal explained why they appreciated Duffy’s comments and how the Jesus painting was meaningful to them.

One midshipman told CP that the painting of Christ ministering to desperate merchant mariners at sea “is a big deal to me personally” because he came to see it as a symbol of God’s faithfulness to him as he feared sinking academically. He said he prayed under the image when he feared he was going to fail.

“I 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,” he said. “I’ve prayed underneath that painting when it used to be in Wiley Hall. So to me, it’s a very significant, important painting, and I think it’s an important part of the school’s history.”

Another midshipman who attended Duffy’s speech echoed the symbolic importance of the painting, noting that its original placement was encouraging to midshipmen during their hardest times at the rigorous academy.

“That room where the painting was held is where the Honor Board meetings were,” he said, referring to a student-led hearing body that investigates potential violations of the Honor Code. “And people would look up to that painting and say, ‘Everything’s going to be all right. Jesus is looking after me, just like He’s looking after these sailors who are washed up on a boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean.'”

“I think everyone was on their feet for the Jesus painting and clapping,” he added. “I thought, ‘Finally, the fight is somewhat close to over.'”