Is, as always, the secularists and atheists and non-believers of the modern godless world. There is nothing better for them than to continually hear religious believers, including their leaders, affirm just how marginal and limited in effectiveness religious faith, practice and belief in God really is. After all, when the Minnesota mayor belted out that the children killed were in the middle of praying, he did nothing but say 'see how utterly useless prayer can be!' That those believers joining the 'sucks to your loser prayers' movement did nothing but circle the wagons around his speech shows how colossal the World now is versus the whimpering, emaciated Church.
Now the whole 'sucks to your loser thoughts and prayers' line of attack came some years ago from gun control activists who were openly non-religious. I remember this addressed on different Catholic sites. At that time, there was obvious sympathy for the gun control activists making the charge. But caution was advised with a gentle rebuke, reminding them (and us) that prayers are never to be seen as contingent upon worldly solutions or activism. They shouldn't be seen as standing against such things as working to find a solution, as some either/or proposition. Likewise, at no point should we make judgments about the sincerity of those invoking prayers, since prayer is so much more than just asking God to solve our problems. But mostly we want to be careful not to affirm the secular idea that God and all the religious stuff is worth nothing more than killing an hour on a Sunday morning versus looking for real solutions in the real world.
Well that's dead. Now there are plenty of Christians saying just what those non-believer said, only more. Taking the leap that nothing but the left's gun control advocacy can save us, and anyone who disagrees can be judged accordingly, it's Christians as much as anyone saying prayers and God are beneficial only within the context of proper political advocacy.
Which wouldn't be the first time someone charged forth and said my way or you aren't properly following God. The irony, like so much we've seen in the last couple decades, is that it was the political and religious left that put the kibosh on such thinking. After all, in WWII for instance, saying we will just pray for peace but not actually resist the Nazis would not have been seen as valid by a substantial number of people. Yet look at all the horrible things we did to beat the Nazis. Hence those left leaning Christians I encountered warning the religious right about making one's religious life, devotion or sincerity contingent upon any worldly or secular matter, especially politics.
But again, that's dead. The worst is, of course, that it plays into the modern narrative that Jesus is OK, God's OK, smoke'em if you got'em, but it's keeping up with the world that allows us to see the true nature of sanctification and righteousness and truth. Something hammered home frequently during the papacy of Pope Francis. Catholicism was OK, and Christianity as good as always. But it was being properly ordered, which almost always looked like adhering to progressive and leftwing ideology and activism, by which we will see the good fruits. Except for transgender activism, which Pope Francis pounded on more than once. Odd that. But that's for another time since right now nobody seems eager to address that particular topic.
No, I like what one fellow observed. He said the big problem with this is how many Christian leaders now are undercutting prayer itself. As any believer who has attended church more than a few times knows, prayer is more than a laundry list of requests we give to Santa God. While supplications certainly have their place, prayer is so much more than just going to God with a list of demands and expecting results on our terms.
In the MASH episode Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler, a B-52 bombardier has a meltdown and decides he is Jesus Christ. It actually has some fairly honest theology for such a show. But at one point, the villainous Frank Burns, who isn't buying this shell shock rubbish, says he knows he's not Jesus. He prayed for something and it didn't happen. To which Hawkeye quips 'just because you didn't get chocolate pudding for lunch doesn't mean anything'. Of course it was a joke, and everyone got how stupid it would be to say 'it can't be God, because I prayed for something and didn't get it.' Apparently those condemning the invoking of prayers because the children who were killed were praying missed that episode.
So those who are saying your prayers are not enough have either two choices. Either they are suggesting prayers are only good insofar as God answers them as we want, and since God hasn't saved the victims, the prayers obviously aren't enough. Or they are saying the efficacy of prayer is entirely contingent upon one worldly solution and one worldly solution only. I just don't see a third option here. But either way, again, the big winners are those who know religion, Christianity and certainly Catholicism are all a bunch of BS to begin with. Something our churches and leaders, and sometimes fellow believers, insist on inadvertently being the biggest cheerleaders for nowadays.
FWIW, as for those Catholic leaders, bishops and others explaining that thoughts and prayers are fine, but must be accompanied by meaningful action? Because meaningful action always sounds like it has been endorsed by the establishment media and DNC, while almost never daring to call out any possible part of the problem that might offend the left of center, I see that doing nothing to avoid the above concerns. After all, even secularists and non-believers can tell court prophets when they see them.
But when it sounds like the US Catholic Leadership is taking its cues from Catholic tradition and not the latest Manhattan Democratic fundraiser, then I'll at least concede the obvious point that prayer does not negate the need for earthly action. It simply shouldn't be subordinate to political activism. Remember, if the US bishops were 25% as passionate and zealous about calling out the border catastrophe during the Biden years as they have been condemning Trump's response to it, we might not have ended up with Trump being reelected in the first place. The same goes for almost every other topic today, including this one.
*Fun trivia. In the MASH episode above, it was shown in season four. Up until that time, the character of Radar O'Reilly had no first name. But at the end of the episode, a young and innocent Radar asks Captain Chandler - taking at face value he might be Jesus after all - to bless his teddy bear. At that point Captain Chandler says 'and bless you Radar.' To which Radar responds 'I'm Walter.' The writers had to come up with a name they thought would fit, and he became Walter as much as Radar for the rest of the show.
