Hail Marys for Hitch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of the last things Thomas Peters does each day is face the Cross of St. Benedict that hangs over his bed and say his evening prayers. The sobering\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/08\/hail-marys-for-hitch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hail Marys for Hitch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the last things Thomas Peters does each day is face the Cross of St. Benedict that hangs over his bed and say his evening prayers. 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{"id":1948,"date":"2010-08-16T06:29:09","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T10:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tmatt.net\/?p=1948"},"modified":"2010-08-16T06:29:09","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T10:29:09","slug":"hail-marys-for-hitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/08\/hail-marys-for-hitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Hail Marys for Hitch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

One of the last things Thomas Peters does each day is face the Cross of St. Benedict that hangs over his bed and say his evening prayers.<\/p>\n

The sobering final phrases of the Hail Mary prayer have recently taken on a unique relevancy: \u201cHoly Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.\u201d<\/p>\n

A month ago, the conservative Catholic writer challenged readers of the American Papist<\/a> website to join him in praying one Hail Mary a day on behalf of the iconoclastic atheist Christopher Hitchens, who has been stricken with esophageal cancer, a disease which leaves few survivors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am going to begin praying \u2026 for the salvation of his eternal soul,\u201d wrote Peters, \u201cthat God will be with him \u2018at the hour of his death,\u2019 that God will help his unbelief in this life, and that those he has led away from God will come back to His infinite love and mercy. I am in no way praying for him to die, I am praying for him to live eternally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters is not alone and Hitchens knows it. While some believers hope that he suffers and dies, post haste, the author of \u201cGod Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything\u201d told CNN<\/a> that he has been surprised that others \u2014 who are \u201cmuch more numerous, I must say, and nicer\u201d \u2014 are praying for his healing, both body and soul.<\/p>\n

This has been one of the strangest side effects of Hitchens\u2019 journey across the \u201cstark frontier that marks off the land of malady.\u201d This is a zone in which almost everyone is politely encouraging, the jokes are feeble, sex talk is nonexistent and the \u201ccuisine is the worst of any destination I have ever visited,\u201d wrote Hitchens, in a blunt Vanity Fair<\/em> essay<\/a>. The native tongue in \u201cTumorville\u201d is built around terms such as \u201cmetastasized,\u201d phases such as \u201ctissue is the issue\u201d and quotes from the writings of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.<\/p>\n

Most of the inhabitants also do quite a bit of praying \u2014 for themselves, for their loved ones and even for suffering people they have never met.<\/p>\n

Hitchens told evangelical broadcaster Hugh Hewitt<\/a> that he remains convinced these prayers \u201cdon\u2019t do any good, but they don\u2019t necessarily do any harm. It\u2019s touching to be thought of in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bottom line, explained Peters, is that his faith asks him to \u201cpray for everyone, even those who hate us. \u2026 Hitch just happens to be a famous public enemy of the faith, so more people know what is happening in this life, so more people are talking about why it\u2019s good to pray for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it is \u201cabsolutely horrible\u201d that anyone would pray for Hitchens to suffer and die, he added, many believers may find it hard to do more than pray for \u201cGod\u2019s will to be done.\u201d That is the \u201csafe prayer\u201d that is always appropriate.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a quick Internet scan reveals that some believers are, predictably enough, praying for Hitchens to be converted to Christianity for the sake of his own soul. Others are specifically praying that the scribe who \u2014 with Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins \u2014 is called one of the \u201cfour horsemen\u201d of the New Atheism will not only convert, but also become an apologist for faith. That happened decades ago with an atheist named C.S. Lewis, after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, I simply will pray that Hitch has a good and holy death,\u201d said Peters. \u201cI really do not care if he has a public conversion. I care that he, somehow, has a private conversion and that he will be reconciled to God.\u201d<\/p>\n

As much as believers love these kinds of \u201cfoxhole conversion\u201d stories, Hitchens is convinced he will not surrender. However, should rumors spread that he has \u201chedged his bets,\u201d the writer has made several public statements warning his admirers that if such cry to the Almighty were to take place, they should ignore it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that comes it will be when I\u2019m very ill, when I am half demented, either by drugs or by pain and I won\u2019t have control over what I say,\u201d he told CNN<\/a>. \u201cI can\u2019t say that the entity that by then would be me wouldn\u2019t do such a pathetic thing. But I can tell you that \u2014 not while I am lucid. No, I could be quite sure of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"