TRH on Prayer No. 3: Praying not Cheerleading

by Tim Kirchoff

At some point in 2015 or early 2016, I noticed that the prayers of the faithful at my home parish often included an intention regarding "just and comprehensive immigration reform." Not merciful, but just. The prayer was not that people who try to come to America be treated mercifully, but that they be treated justly.

On its surface, a prayer for "justice" in immigration laws seems like something that one might hear from people who favor stricter enforcement of our immigration laws, but it takes on a different meaning when it comes from people who sympathize deeply with the concerns and interests of the undocumented. Justice, they seem to say, is better than what the undocumented are subjected to under the existing legal regime.

Curious, I began to look for prayers about immigration from the pro-enforcement side. But at the time, the only prayers I could readily find that seemed related to the immigration issue but were not in favor of the immigrants themselves were aimed toward ensuring the safety and success of law enforcement in border regions, and to the extent that the prayers were directed against anyone, it was against drug traffickers.

I no longer have the resolve to spend any length of time researching what sorts of prayers immigration hawks might be offering in the age of Trump, but at the time, it struck me that it would be rather difficult for anyone to pray that all the undocumented be deported. By the same token, one could hardly pray that the individuals, families and communities that are affected by deportation or the ever-present fear of deportation continue to suffer in those ways.

My point is not that some immigration hawks know deep down that the policies they defend are not just in God's eyes. OK, well, maybe it is, but only tangentially. More basically, I think the prayers offered by both sides are actually compatible. Most advocates for immigrants and refugees would happily pray for the safety and success of border enforcement agents in apprehending drug traffickers and dangerous criminals, and I suspect that those who pray for border patrol agents would also be willing to pray that our country institute and enforce immigration policies that are in accordance with justice.

Such shared prayer may be helpful in finding ways for different sides to agree with minimal equivocation, and this in turn might help rebuild a shared recognition of the goods we hold in common. In trying to pray together, we are not only trying to invite the "other side" into our words and concerns, but to bring both sides' concerns before God. Each side must not only concede that the other side has something of value that they are trying to protect, and then further surrender the question to God.

That process is, in theory, what legislative chaplains are supposed to facilitate, and why the story about Paul Ryan pressuring the House chaplain to resign was so fascinating to watch. At first, the story was that Fr. Pat Conroy was being fired because of overly partisan prayers; the narrative later changed to Republican dissatisfaction over the pastoral care he was offering.

In the first narrative, a prayer before a debate on the Republican tax bill was supposedly read as being critical of the bill's intentions. If indeed Republicans took umbrage at the chaplain praying that they, '"be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great nation guarantee the opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle” and that they “guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans,”' then it would seem to be a case of, to borrow Shakespeare's phrase, protesting too much. If a prayer that the lawmaking process serves the common good (and especially the poor) strikes you as a jab against your intentions despite the fact that your allies frequently invoke those same ideas in support of the legislation, then perhaps your own intentions are not so good.

A well-composed prayer in the context of a political debate is a challenge; it cannot be merely perfunctory or platitudinous, or it accomplishes nothing. Nor can it be partisan, or it only makes the debate more acrimonious: when the person praying forgets that God is the intended audience, and instead tries to use religious language to partisan ends, then they're not praying so much as cheerleading.

At its best, prayer is the necessary starting point for a shared process of policy discernment. If the prayer contains conscious equivocation-- for example, in abortion debates, both sides claim to represent human rights-- then treating each side's concern as sincere and not just political posturing is a necessary precondition for resolving the tension.

Prayer gives us an opportunity to engage our consciences. It is a way of asking ourselves whether what we are trying to accomplish is truly in line with what we believe to be morally correct, and of recognizing that people who disagree with us may nonetheless be acting in good faith.

In short, finding ways to pray together about politics is an interesting challenge. Let's try it more often.