"Please pray for me. I need the prayers."
The conversation I had with Archbishop Bernard Hebda of the Twin Cities in early August at a conference in Washington, D.C., was brief. At the time, he had no idea how much he would need prayers. And not primarily for himself -- but for the people God has entrusted to him as a shepherd.
Weeks later, children would be murdered at the opening Mass of their school year, slain by a school shooter. The usual politically motivated criticism of the inefficacy of the standard "Thoughts and prayers" response has once again been deployed. What the critics do not realize is that prayers are not mere thoughts, but actual action.
The occasion at which I ran into Archbishop Hebda was in honor of former Ambassador to the Holy See and longtime Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon. Glendon, at a conference in Rome on religious persecution many years ago, talked about the problem with Catholics in the United States. We tend to either be turtles or chameleons. We tend to either hide in our shells, hoping not to be noticed or work to blend in with the culture around us, compromising our values if necessary.
While the attack on the Minneapolis church might confirm every turtle instinct among us Catholics -- especially as it came after a shooting that killed one outside a Catholic high school in the same city the day before -- we should fight that impulse to hide. The manifesto left behind -- don't take a look if you haven't -- by the killer suggests exactly what the world needs: The healing power of the truth.
There will be a boatload of media scrutiny and feverish rhetoric over the coming weeks regarding the killer' true motivations. But regardless of what was in the murderer's heart, evil had a field day with them, as it does with our culture. We owe it to ourselves and to society not to look away from the darkness and destruction that threaten us, and to try to help the people in its grip before it's too late.
When asked during a news conference about the controversy about "thoughts and prayers," Hebda was clear the while it is not all that we do, it is essential in guiding our responses to evil. "I think that has to be our first line of attack, even as we figure out how it is that we move forward."
For the families of the two children killed in the shooting, 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski, it will take a miracle for their hearts to be healed. The only thing I can do about that is pray, because only God can heal that kind of wound. Memorials and therapy are are important in the process of grief. But this is inconsolable pain, and a problem that is bigger than us. Victory over evil happens with divine intervention. Giving belief in God the time of day -- if we can take a break from yelling about the impotence or efficacy of prayer -- will help us with hope.
(Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.)