REVEALED: The drug trafficker who found God and says he's turning US schools into churches with GOP-backed chaplains and an '83% salvation rate'

Rocky Malloy is a man on a mission.

And that mission is, in his own words, to deploy chaplains to make America's public 'schools turn into churches.'

For many, it's a worrying bid to erode the division of church and state enshrined in the US Constitution.

It's scarier still when you consider Malloy's historic convictions for drug trafficking and trying to topple Mexico's government.

But for the growing number of Republican lawmakers who back Malloy, it's how to put troubled young people on the righteous path.

Rocky Malloy's road to righteousness passed through drugs, piracy and rebel groups in Central America

Malloy he and wife Joske are putting 'God and prayer' in America's schools through GOP-endorsed chaplain laws 

It's working. Texas and Florida have in recent months passed laws to allow school chaplains.

Republicans in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah and several other states are advancing similar bills.

Advocates say having spiritual chaplains in schools can ease a youth mental health crisis, help overstretched teachers, and offer spiritual care to students who can't afford religious schools.

But critics say it's harmful to introduce authority figures to kids without clear boundaries or standards.

Others say Malloy's chaplains will do more than counsel — that they seek to convert students, promote abstinence and discourage homosexuality.

They also note that Malloy wants taxpayers to pick up the tab and pay chaplains' wages.

DailyMail.com has unearthed documents and videos that suggest some concerns are justified.

Malloy's goals go far beyond what even many Christians seek in a public school system.

He heads the National School Chaplain Association (NSCA), a subsidiary of Mission Generation, which was launched in 1999 to bring Jesus to classrooms worldwide.

In presentations to donors, Malloy boasts that chapalins reduce teen pregnancies by 80 percent, citing 'anecdotal' statistics from by an unnamed 'third party'

Malloy started his journey on a remote island in Central America where he grew pot and read from an oversize Bible

Members seek to 'enhance HIS presence by infiltrating' the public school system, according to documents seen by Texas lawmakers.

They want to 'leverage one of the largest networks on the earth, the existing school system, and utilize government funding … to teach Jesus in the classroom,' the papers show.

In rarely-seen videos from the late 2010s, Malloy is candid about his goals.

Chaplains should be the only person in a school 'representing absolute truth,' he says in one.

'They get to define what truth is,' he adds, in classrooms where all else is 'relative.'

Citing the Christian children's author C.S. Lewis, he says they're 'working behind enemy lines.'

US schoolkids get a 'godless education' with teachers who blur the lines between men and women, he says.

In closed-door presentations to conservative donors, he says school chaplains can save them.

In one, he boasts about his group's impressive 'salvation' rate.

Fully 83 percent of students who sit down with chaplains respond 'positively to the Gospel message, accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,' according to one of Malloy's presentations.

Malloy met his wife and ministry partner, Joske, a Dutch nurse, near the Honduras-Nicaragua border in 1989 when he was caught up in the Sandinista Civil War

A chaplain in a private religious school in Tennessee. Malloy aims to 'infiltrate' public schools with his own chaplains to 'work behind enemy lines'

With chaplains in schools, graduations go up, pregnancies, suicides and truancy fall, he says.

The message resonates with conservatives, who worry about lefty teachers dwelling on race and gender instead of teaching kids how to read and write.

Malloy says chaplains would scour libraries and flag books with sexual content — a goal of many parents' rights groups and Republican-controlled legislatures.

It's a strange turnaround for Malloy, a dad-of-five from North Carolina with a backstory in drugs, guns, piracy, and Central American rebel groups.

In videos, Malloy describes himself living on a remote island in the 1980s, growing pot and reading the Bible.

Later, in Mexico, he got mixed up with a tribe that led to his getting a life sentence for drug trafficking and trying to overthrow the government.

His release from jail 72 hours later was thanks to divine intervention, he says.

On the Honduras-Nicaragua border in 1989, he was caught up in the Sandinista Civil War, where he met his wife and ministry partner, Joske, a Dutch nurse serving in the conflict.

He started working with children there, and came to see schools as a vehicle for spreading the Gospel to children, teachers, parents — and society at large.

He built a network of chaplains that today has projects in 30,531 schools across 23 countries, the group says.

Malloy does not shy away from his record in piracy, drug trafficking and Central American rebel movements

Eric Johnson has served as a chaplain in Iowa's hospitals for 15 years. Putting chaplains in public schools with children remains controversial, though  

Now he's bringing it home to America.

The NSCA says it was 'instrumental' in Texas becoming the first US state with a school chaplain law, which passed in 2023.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a similar law in April; more than a dozen states have legislation in the works.

Across the US, Republican and Democratic politicians are sparring over the role of chaplains.

They were traditionally viewed as clergymen ministering outside of congregations, but the modern role is poorly defined.

Chaplains serve in the US Congress, military, and prisons, and each has stringent rules for hiring and service.

Hospitals, police and fire stations, colleges and private firms also hire chaplains with wide-ranging standards.

Many chaplains have seminary or ministry training in a particular faith.

But chaplains serving in multicultural places may also need professional, supervised training.

Malloy's NSCA certifies chaplains, in some cases after a few hours' of online tuition.

The flexible laws typically permit chaplains with backgrounds in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or another faith.

Malloy could be fighting for attention against 'ministers' from the Satanic Temple group, which aims to get in to schools through chaplain laws 

Jared Deck, an Oklahoma Democratic state representative, calls the chaplain law a 'Trojan horse' 

The Satanic Temple, a federally-recognized religion that fuses devil worship with political trolling, says it plans to use chaplain laws to deploy its own 'ministers' to schools.

But, in reality, only the NSCA and other Christian groups have the members and the money to get large numbers of chaplains in schools.

Still, the laws are not a slam dunk, and have been rejected in Indiana, Utah and several other states.

In Texas, which passed the law, major schools districts in Houston, Austin, and Dallas are not participating.

Republicans in Oklahoma are currently pushing their own draft school chaplain law, opposed by Democrats.

Jared Deck, a Democratic state representative, calls the bill a 'Trojan horse' for Malloy's NSCA and others seeking to convert schoolkids.

'These organizations are calling for proselytization in public schools while the politicians presenting the bill say they're not,' Deck told DailyMail.com.

'They want to use public dollars for religious indoctrination. Next, they'll seek to determine which religions can be taught.'