The term “weaponization of the law” became part of the political discourse during the Duterte regime. The law, ideally represented by a blindfolded lady, was instead instrumentalized to go after opponents like then-senator Leila De Lima who was imprisoned for seven years for charges which were later proven to be bogus.
But can prayers also be weaponized? I chose to write on this question after I have read a thought-provoking column written by Inez Ponce de Leon, an Ateneo de Manila University associate professor, in a national daily. The title of her piece is “When Prayers Seem Unjust.” She recounts that as a lector, she read the prayers of the faithful which contains, among other prayers, the plea that people in the government be content with their salaries. She then asks whether one is automatically greedy when one is not contented with the take-home pay. She writes, “When our nurses, lower-ranked police officers, teachers and workers are asking to be paid more, are they necessarily being greedy, or are their protests asking us to scrutinize systems of injustice that are being perpetuated by institutions where the hardworking many receive little while the overseeing few wallow in cash? What if our plea for people to be content with their meager pay is also encouraging a system that devalues human labor?”
I wholeheartedly agree with her. I call it the weaponization of prayer. I want to give my own illustrations. Situate yourself in a feudal society and you are one of the peasants, and this prayer is uttered, “We pray that peasants may learn to devote themselves to their masters without any reservation.”
Or imagine that your son has been a victim of extrajudicial killing and, and without a word about justice, the prayer is for you to learn to forgive. These prayers are certainly not neutral. They are ideological.
But the weaponization of prayers can oftentimes be more subtle. A believer may pray for the conversion of an unbeliever who happens to be committed to the downtrodden. In itself, there is nothing wrong with the prayer as everyone is in need of conversion. But when specifically pointing out the conversion of the unbeliever, is the believer saying that he himself is in no need of conversion? Yet, Vatican II itself teaches, “Hence, believers can have more than a little to do with the birth of atheism. To the extent that that they neglect their own training in the faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or are deficient in their religious, moral or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion.” (Gaudium et Spes 19). A good prayer, free from weaponization, is that which leads us to a sincere introspection.
A word about commanded prayers: There is nothing wrong when we are commanded to pray to God for good weather or for an end of a pandemic. After all, these are the desires of every reasonable individual. But when we are commanded to pray for something debatable, something which a Catholic can disagree with and still remain a faithful Catholic, then the oratio imperata is an overkill. Prayers must come from the heart and it does not make sense to command a person to pray for something which he does not believe in.
Related to the issue of weaponization of prayers is the invocation of the name of God to incite wars. It is not just the Jihadists who are guilty of performing violent acts in the name of God. Recently, US Sen. Ted Cruz justified the bombing of Iran saying, “those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed.” Here is a US senator who confuses the state of Israel which was established in 1948 and the biblical Israel, who believed they were the chosen people.
Students of Philippine history can recall that US President William McKinley, at the start of the Spanish-American War, was not sure what to do with the Philippines. He could not even locate the Philippines in the map! But he claimed to have prayed and must have heard God’s message: “When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them… I walked the floor of the Whie House night after night until midnight… I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night… and one night late it came to me this way…that we could not give them back to Spain… that we could not leave them to themselves…” Obviously, he did not ask the Filipinos, he directly asked God!
Yes indeed, prayers can be weaponized.