Audio only:
Joe examines the controversy over “thoughts and prayers” between the left and right, and shows through Church teaching what the correct response is in the aftermath of tragedy.
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer, and in the aftermath of 19 school children being shot, two of them fatally while they attended a school mass at Enunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. There were outpourings of grief all over. President Trump and Vice President Vance both announced they were monitoring the situation and called for prayers for the victims. But other public figures use this moment to denounce those offering their thoughts and prayers, thoughts
CLIP:
And prayers. That is all they’re offering. Thoughts and prayers just aren’t enough here right now. Let our kids were actually praying
Joe:
At the end of the day. Thoughts and prayers have led us to having more of these deaths, more of these shootings
CLIP:
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, but also keep us in the thoughts for action.
Joe:
There are two ways of understanding those words. One is that they’re saying enough with the thoughts and prayers because they regard prayer as useless. But the other interpretation hopefully is that they just mean that prayer by itself. It’s no substitute for the other things we ought to be doing as well. After all, St. John warns that he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen more specifically. If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him. How does God’s love abide him? In John’s words, we’re called to love, not in word or speech, but indeed and in truth. So if God has placed somebody in your life for you to take care of, it is not enough for you to just say, I’ll pray for you. St.
James warns us that if you see a brother or sister and need of food and clothing and you respond, go in peace, be warmed and filled, that does nothing. Your faith by itself is dead. It needs works in this case. It needs the works of caring for the people whom God has placed in your life. Failing to do this is literally damnable. As the second Vatican Council warns, you can’t use heaven as an excuse not to do the things you’re meant to do here on earth. The Christian who neglects his temporal duties neglects his duties towards his neighbor and even God and jeopardizes his eternal salvation. So it’s perfectly valid for people to ask whether the President of the United States of America could be doing more to stop mass shootings, for instance, by pushing for better laws, regulating the sales of guns beyond just tweeting about the need for prayer.
Now, on the other hand, legislation can’t possibly solve this problem entirely. There are currently an estimated 392 million guns in circulation in the United States alone, and nobody has a plausible plan that would effectively keep all of those guns out of the hands of criminals. At a certain point, all of us, even the President, are going to be powerless. And it’s times like these that remind us that we really do need prayers. In the words of Vice President Vance, we pray because our hearts are broken. We pray because we know God listens. We pray because we know that God works in mysterious ways and can inspire us to further action. Or as Pope be the 16th once reminded us, it’s in prayer that we draw in new strength from Christ. And so it’s wrong to accuse people of wasting their time by praying even when situation seems hopeless.
On the contrary, when our human efforts are not enough upon whom else could we possibly depend. So that’s why there’s something particularly grotesque about some of the current attempts to minimize or denigrate the power of prayer at a time like this. Now, look, if you don’t believe in God, I can understand why you might think that responding to a massacre by tweeting about the need for prayer feels like a futile gesture. But it’s more than a little hypocritical to complain about this while posting your own sad and angry tweets as if your sad tweets are going to solve the problem of gun violence or bring those kids back from the dead. But it’s not just that it’s hypocritical, it’s also just pretty gross to respond to the shooting of praying children by attacking prayer.
CLIP:
M-S-N-B-C host and former Biden Press secretary Janaki echoed Mayor Frey writing on X prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers do not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back enough with the thoughts and prayers
Joe:
As the current White House press Secretary reminded her predecessor.
CLIP:
Frankly, I think they’re incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country who believe in the power of prayer, who believe that prayer works and who believe that in a time of mourning like this, when beautiful young children were killed while praying in a church, it’s utterly disrespectful.
Joe:
But rather than distancing themselves from these kind of attacks on prayers, politicians like California’s Governor Gavin Newsom responded by saying, these children were literally praying as they got shot at the mayor of Minneapolis. Jacob Fry said almost exactly the same thing,
CLIP:
And don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying,
Joe:
Yes, these children were shot while praying by a man who mocked God and mocked the Eucharist writing on one clip. Where is your God using the face of the crucified Christ as target practice and writing on one of his guns? Take this all of you and eat a malevolent force that hates the innocence of children and hates the mass was at work here. And if your response to this is to suggest that this somehow proves prayer doesn’t work, you just become another voice shouting where is your God at the victims? But beyond being hypocritical and grotesque, it’s also politically idiotic. I mean, Vance rightly asked, why do you feel the need to attack other people for praying when kids were just killed praying? And he rightly described it as the most bizarre left-wing culture war of the last few years. After all, what is the goal here? Gun control is way more popular than atheism. So how are you helping your popular cause by marrying it to attacks on prayer or on religion? I mean, what do you gain by telling the survivors of this shooting they need to stop praying for their classmates in the hospital?
CLIP:
What do you want to say to everyone that had to go to the hospital?
I hope you’re okay, and I’m praying for you.
Joe:
As Christians, we know that prayer is indispensable. St. Alfon leg once warned, those who pray are certainly saved. Those who do not pray are certainly damned. Admittedly, it’s hard to show this to someone who doesn’t share the faith, but even if you’re not a Christian, there should be no denying the evidence that prayer at the very least, is helpful for the person praying. Numerous studies have shown that when people pray, they have better mental functioning control, even better pain tolerance. Now, of course, as Christians, we know that prayer does a lot more than that. As St James said, the prayer of a righteous man has great power and its effects. So prayer helps both us and those for whom we pray. And so it’s perfectly natural and indeed it is correct for us to respond to tragedies like this by offering our prayers. This is so natural in fact that we now see people saying they’re sending their thoughts or their vibes. That’s nonsense, of course, but it’s showing the void where prayer belongs. In a world that is removed, prayer from public life, thoughts and vibrations demonstrate man’s an unique desire for prayer in times of tragedy. But our true prayers, our actual prayers can never be divorced from action. Pope Francis reminded us prayer that doesn’t lead to concrete action toward our brothers is a fruitless and incomplete prayer. And to that end, there might actually be more common ground between say a JD Vance and a Mayor Jacob Fry than their first appears.
CLIP:
Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can’t you pray for the speedy recovery of these kids who literally just got shot yesterday while at the same time committing to making sure this doesn’t happen again or that it happens as infrequently as possible?
Joe:
Mayor Free responded to that by saying,
CLIP:
Well, maybe we’re not really having an argument then and hopefully JD Vance will pass this very necessary legislation that prevents kids from dying in the future. There’s a principle in Judaism known as Tikkun Olam, which is about healing the world. And essentially the meaning there is prayers are good, but they are not enough. They are a necessity, but they are not in and of themselves adequate. It’s only adequate if you can attach an action to the work.
Joe:
There are times when things appear from a human perspective hopeless, and all we can do is pray and as Bar is to attack people for praying at moments like these. But there are other times where we can use prayer as sort of an excuse not to do the hard work God is calling us to do. Now, I can’t promise you which policies would’ve prevented this or tell you what would ensure. We don’t have a situation like this one tomorrow, but I can say that in action or indifference, these are not acceptable. It is our duty as Christians, both to fight for those who have died and who will die tomorrow, and also to pray for them. And may the children who have died, Fletcher Merkel and Harper Moki stand before God as martyrs for Christ as we wage our battle against the forces of evil. If you want to hear more about the power of prayer and some of the attacks on whether it works, my friend Trent Horn made a video responding to some of those objections and explaining why we believe in it. If you want, you can check that out right here for Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.