Pete Hegseth Quotes ‘Pulp Fiction’ During Prayer Service | EUROtoday

In a transfer that appears indicative of the Trump administration’s more and more fractured relationship with the Vatican, Pete Hegseth appeared to mistake traces from a traditional crime movie for Scripture throughout a public look this week.

The protection secretary delivered a prayer throughout a livestreamed worship service on the Pentagon on Wednesday. “They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17,” he mentioned in his introduction of the prayer he’d been given.

However, viewers shortly seen his phrases extra intently echoed one in every of Samuel L. Jackson’s monologues from 1994’s “Pulp Fiction” than the biblical verse he’d referenced.

“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” Hegseth mentioned partially. “Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

Watch Pete Hegseth’s prayer service under. His reference to Ezekiel 25:17 begins across the 6:56 mark.

In “Pulp Fiction,” Jackson portrays hit man Jules Winnfield, who presents an identical declaration earlier than capturing a person to dying.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” he says. “Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”

Hegseth mentioned the prayer was recited by the “Sandy 1” fight search and rescue (CSAR) mission in Iran, and to be truthful, “Pulp Fiction” writer-director Quentin Tarantino reportedly drew from a scene within the 1973 Japanese movie “Bodyguard Kiba” as the premise for Jackson’s monologue.

The precise Ezekiel 25:17 passage because it seems within the King James Bible is considerably shorter than each Hegseth’s and Jackson’s, studying merely: “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”

Hegseth has but to handle the discourse publicly. The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, issued an announcement on X Thursday acknowledging the CSAR prayer and Hegseth’s phrases had been “obviously inspired by dialogue” in “Pulp Fiction,” however that each the prayer and the movie scene had been “reflections of the verse Ezekiel 25:17, as Secretary Hegseth clearly said in his remarks at the prayer service.”

“Anyone saying the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality,” he added.

Still, movies evaluating Hegseth’s prayer to Jackson’s monologue went viral on-line and, as of Thursday, had drawn a good variety of snarky responses.

“When our leaders mix up God and a movie, in trying to suggest that God is behind them, that suggests the muddle we’re all in,” New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote on X.

Journalist and creator James North quipped: “The Old Testament’s ‘Book of Tarantino.’”

Hegseth’s prayer gaffe comes amid rising tensions between the Trump administration, together with President Donald Trump himself, and high-ranking Catholic leaders.

On Sunday, the president deemed Pope Leo XIV “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” in a submit on his Truth Social platform after the pontiff criticized each the Iran struggle and the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

That identical day, Trump drew additional outrage when he shared what seemed to be an AI-generated picture of himself as Jesus Christ ― or, on the very least, a Christ-like determine ― on Truth Social.

Though the president argued the picture was meant to depict him as a physician, he or his workforce quietly deleted it after public figures on either side of the political aisle condemned it as “blasphemous.”