This photo was released, showing Vice President Mike Pence commencing his Coronavirus task force with a prayer. Predictably, it was mocked by many on the left.
Hemant Mehta, who writes for Patheos.com’s “Friendly Atheist” blog, wrote that “it’s not a joke when people say these Republicans are trying to stop a virus with prayer.”
“What else did anyone expect?” Mehta asked. “Science? Reason? Something sensible? Of course not. If this virus truly becomes a pandemic, we’re at the mercy of people delusional enough to think their pleas to God will fix the problem. The same God who presumably created the virus, at least in their minds, will somehow make sure it hurts only a handful of Americans … and a ton of Chinese people.”
Dr. Angela Rassmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, also criticized the prayer. “I have yet to attend a scientific meeting that begins in prayer,” she wrote.
Thomas Chatterton Williams, a contributing writer with the New York Times Magazine, shared the photo on Twitter and commented that “we are so screwed.”
“They’re treating this disease with the seriousness and urgency they bring to gun violence,” Williams wrote in a tweet. “While some are taking solace in the thought that this administration — which disbanded the CDC pandemic team in 2018 — performatively prays for the camera, this is a chilling window into their actual epidemiological unpreparedness and incompetence.”
Hahahahahahaa!!! Washington thought prayer could help him and his men persevere through the harsh winter of Valley Forge!!!! Hahahahaha!
Heeeheheheheheeheeeee!!! Lincoln thought prayer could help the country to free slaves and somehow keep the country together!!!!! What a fooooooool!!!!
Hahahaha. FDR thought that the nation could persevere through the most eventful day of the war with a prayer. Oh boy, we’re soooooo screwed.
March 5, 2020 at 1:41 pm
Pence is an apostate catholic. The rest you listed are heretics. Their prayers will not appease God. Only the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is efficacious in appeasing the wrath of God. And because most Catholics who attend the New Mass are irreverent and impious before during and after Mass and most priests who say the New Mass are irreverent and impious while saying the Mass – there won't be much help there either. Our Lady Of Lady of La Salette that because of the irreverence and impiety in celebrating the Holy Mysteries men will be punish for over 35+ years.
March 5, 2020 at 8:27 pm
"I have no window with which to look into another man's soul"
– attributed to St. Thomas More
March 5, 2020 at 8:30 pm
I don't care much for Mr. Pence – which is okay; he doesn't even know that I exist – because of his unhappy and flawed-at-the-core syncretism and because he serves an unhappy master, but prayer is always appropriate. Further, the Faith teaches us that the Holy Spirit shapes all prayers into what they should be.
March 5, 2020 at 9:10 pm
OK…did Pence pray his way out of the Catholic Church?
No. he left the Catholic Church because of his sins. Pence no longer wanted to confess his sins to a priest.. And Pence certainly did not want to Pray like a Catholic or do Penance like a Catholic. It much easier to be a evangelical.
Prayer will not help Pence unless he comes back into the fold. Just like Martin Luther – praying outside the one true church didn't help.
March 7, 2020 at 6:07 pm
I have not your omniscience.
March 7, 2020 at 12:05 am
I'm glad he prayed. I'm grateful God is so much more than we can even begin to imagine. I find it impossible to believe God does not hear prayers of those outside the church. If that were the case, we wouldn't see so many zealous Protestants who have relationship with Christ. I don't mean to start a war, but I'd take Billy Graham any day over this relentlessly apostate pope. Billy Graham loved Jesus Christ and lived for him. That makes him my friend in Christ.
March 10, 2020 at 12:20 am
In "The Passion of the Christ" Satan runs in panic at the moment Christ dies. These people remind me of that. So many words and so much energy expended to scream at something they don't believe in. As if what they don't believe in can cause them pain.