Duffy Hangs Replica of Controversial USMMA Jesus Painting in DOT Office: ‘It Looks Beautiful’

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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday that he hung a replica of a controversial Jesus painting from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy behind his desk at the U.S. Department of Transportation office in Washington.

“What I found fascinating when I was at the academy was that this was a personal affront to the midshipmen at the academy,” Duffy said in a video shared with The Christian Post before being posted on social media. “That [the painting] was taken from a place of prominence and put in the basement of the chapel actually had them outraged.”

Duffy’s announcement comes a month after he went viral on social media when midshipmen at the federal service academy in Kings Point, New York, erupted in applause when he called for the school’s historic “Christ on the Water” painting to be restored to a prominent place after being removed to a flood-prone basement during the Biden administration.

The 10-foot by 19-foot painting, which was painted by the late merchant mariner Hunter A. Wood in 1944, depicts Jesus saving sailors lost at sea and hung in the USMMA’s Wiley Hall for 76 years until a 2023 letter from Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder Mikey Weinstein demanded its removal.

The USMMA administration, under Vice Adm. Joanna M. Nunan, first covered the painting with a curtain during official events before placing it in the basement of the school’s chapel. (Read more from “Duffy Hangs Replica of Controversial USMMA Jesus Painting in DOT Office: ‘It Looks Beautiful’” HERE)