An Ottumwa, Iowa, city council meeting opened in chaos on Tuesday when a former council member took the podium and delivered a satanic invocation — beginning with "Dear dark father" and ending with the words "Hail Satan."

Matt Dalbey, a former council member and a member of The Satanic Temple of Iowa, read the invocation as part of the meeting's regular opening. He urged those present to "embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge," closing with "It is done. Hail, Satan!" Dalbey later told the Ottumwa Courier that the prayer "has nothing to do with the belief in a satanic deity."

New Life Center pastor Rick Bick immediately rose to object. Right after the Pledge of Allegiance, Bick walked to the podium and demanded the council "reverse this curse that was put on our city."

"That 'Hail Satan' is not welcome here," Bick said. "It needs to be done now. That was a curse put on the city. Most of you know that, and we need to just stop and reverse it."

Council member Cara Galloway urged Bick to wait for the public comment period, but Mayor Benjamin Foote overruled her, calling instead for 30 seconds of silence "to reflect on whatever it is we need to reflect on at this time."

The invocation fell under a January 20 city policy allowing any Ottumwa resident to deliver the opening prayer regardless of religion or belief — a policy Galloway alone voted against, warning it would invite exactly this kind of conflict. The city said this week that it "cannot discriminate against a denomination," does not preview invocations, and does not endorse what speakers say.

Mayor Foote told Fox News Digital: "This is not a reflection of our community. 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."

Daniel Whyte III, President of Gospel Light Society International, weighed in: "The devil is a lie, and every so-called 'satanic prayer' is just noise to a God who still sits on the throne. But before pastors and evangelicals get too upset, remember — you cannot rebuke the devil at the city council meeting on Tuesday and bow down to him in secret on Friday. If the church wants to see Satan cast out of the public square, the church must first cast him out of its own house."