“I’m praying for Christopher Hitchens,” says Chrisina Odone at The Telegraph
Noting that columnist Johann Hari said that we shouldn’t pray for the author, she writes: I find myself in a quandary: upon hearing that an acquaintance has throat cancer, of course I instantly want to pray for them. Hitchens is not only an acquaintance, but a life-enhancer. Even when he’s in vicious mode, his prose fizzes and dazzles: “Shepherds”, he informed Canadians during a lecture tour, “don’t look after sheep because they love them — although I do think some shepherds like their sheep too much. They look after their sheep so they can, first, fleece them and second, turn them into meat. That’s much more like the priesthood as I know it.”
I won’t say “Amen” to that, but I would like to get on my knees and say the “Our Father” for someone for whom I have a sneaking admiration, Odone adds while wondering whether it is it right to pray for someone who claims to find prayer hateful.