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Bishops pray for the president: to pray for rulers is not to endorse a party
Twelve days before the midterm elections, a handful of American bishops prayed around the president in the Oval Office; the bishops' conference distanced itself and the framing remains contested.
On 22 October, the Archbishop of Denver, Most Rev. James Golka, and more than half a dozen American bishops gathered around the President of the United States, in the Oval Office, to pray and to ask God's blessing upon him. Among them were Bishop Abdallah Elias Zaidan, Bishop Edward Burns, Bishop James Wall, Bishop Joseph Naumann, Bishop William Joensen, Bishop Jeffrey Grob and Bishop Michael Barber.
The meeting, arranged by the White House faith office, bore on religious liberty, school choice, religious visas and the defense of life; before concluding, the bishops prayed around the presidential desk. The archbishop gave thanks « for the gift of our beautiful nation, the gift of our government, and the gift of this office of the presidency », and begged Heaven « to surround our country, to protect us against every influence of evil ».
To pray for those who hold authority is neither a novelty nor a complaisance: it is an apostolic command. « I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men: for kings and for all that are in high station » (First Epistle to Timothy, II, 1-2). The very Canon of the Mass names rulers in its supplication, and the Catechism of the Council of Trent ranks, under the fourth commandment, among the duties of subjects toward magistrates, that of praying for them. The Church has never ceased to call down upon princes the light and the fear of God; she does so the more readily in that power is uncertain of its ends.
Where prayer for the prince is immemorial, the ambiguity lodges elsewhere: in the hour and in the use. The scene is set twelve days before the midterm elections, and the video was circulated on a campaign account, which lends it an electoral color. The Archdiocese of Denver was careful to specify that praying for rulers « is a practice of long tradition in the Catholic Church » and that « it does not mean endorsing a particular candidate or political party ».
The conference of the bishops of the United States distanced itself: « This is not something the USCCB organized. It is not affiliated with the Conference. » The director of the faith office saw in it « not politics, but public engagement, ending in a genuine prayer with the president and for him ». The framing, for its part, remains contested.
The Church prays for princes; she does not deliver herself up to a party. The gesture is lawful and ancient; what would not be is to make it the banner of a faction on the eve of a vote. Between supplication and campaign, the border is not a subtlety: it is the whole order the fourth commandment sets between the throne and the altar. One may bless a man clothed with an office without blessing his alliances; prudence requires that the second not hide beneath the first.
Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fourth commandment, concerning the honour and the prayers due to magistrates; Saint Paul, First Epistle to Timothy, II, 1-2 (Douay-Rheims, from the Vulgate); Canon of the Mass (Te igitur), prayer for rulers.