(LifeSiteNews) — My Catholic parish in California recites the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel after all weekend and weekday Masses with one exception – the 4:30 p.m. Mass on Sunday.
That Mass is said by Father Tom (not his real name), a priest in his seventies who is not assigned to the parish but has been celebrating the “Sunday 4:30” since last spring. He quickly made it clear that the St. Michael Prayer is not to be recited after his Masses.
In early October, however, a younger female parishioner began leading the prayer following the final blessing. Father Tom tried to stop her, but the woman proceeded up the center aisle and confronted him near the foot of the altar. There was a brief but heated exchange with shouting by both parties.
The parishioner may have felt emboldened because the previous week, on September 29, the Catholic Church observed the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels. That same day Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump shared the prayer on multiple social media platforms, without comment but with a traditional image of St. Michael with his sword drawn and his foot on Satan’s head.
On October 11, The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion article by Father Raymond J. de Souza about the St. Michael Prayer and Trump’s promotion of it. A well-known Catholic commentator, de Souza noted that his own parish in Ohio recites the prayer after every Mass.
“The history of the prayer is remarkable and may well appeal to politicians who see evil on the march,” de Souza wrote. “It certainly appeals to Christians under persecution, and its return to prominence in recent years signals a desire for devotions suitable for a combative time.”
Pope Leo XIII composed the prayer in 1884, reportedly after a mystical experience involving a conversation between Jesus and Satan about a century-long, full-scale demonic assault against the Catholic Church.
The martial prayer implores St. Michael to “be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil” and to “cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”
At Pope Leo’s direction, de Souza recounted, the prayer was recited at the conclusion of Masses worldwide from 1886 until “in the liturgical reforms of the 1960s, the prayer was dropped. It seemed too militant for the times, even though the imagery is straight out of the Scriptures.”
Yet Catholicism is facing militant hostility across America today. Demonic activity underpins the relentless promotion by the government and culture at large of abortion, homosexuality, and transgenderism, which especially target children through murder, indoctrination, and mutilation.
The U.S. Department of Justice under President Joe Biden has imprisoned pro-life advocates and investigated Catholics who embrace the Traditional Latin Mass, while largely ignoring the hundreds of violent attacks on Catholic churches and crisis pregnancy centers since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In Canada, arsonists have destroyed dozens of Catholic churches in the wake of unproven claims of unmarked mass graves at former Indian Residential School sites. Angelic assistance in spiritual warfare is sorely needed.
The animosity toward Catholicism of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has been highlighted in recent days by Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance and by CatholicVote, which produced a campaign ad focusing on Harris’s support for an anti-Catholic hate group.
The Atlanta chapter of the Satanic Temple held a so-called “black mass” on October 25, after denying it would be desecrating the Holy Eucharist for the event – something that has been part of black masses historically. The Satanic Temple of America describes abortion as a “sacramental act” and now operates free “satanic abortion clinics” in Virginia and New Mexico.
It’s no coincidence that the Democratic Party’s main wedge issue against former President Trump is taxpayer-funded abortion without limits.
At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last July, by contrast, a delegate from Iowa said the St. Michael Prayer onstage to cheers from the audience.
In response to Father de Souza’s article, The Wall Street Journal published a letter to the editor on October 22 titled “St. Michael Is Out of Place At the End of Catholic Mass.”
“The Holy See suppressed this practice in 1964,” wrote Reverend Gerald J. Bednar, “because the prayer interferes with the integrity of the Mass. It ends the liturgy with a private devotion, a petition to a saint, while all of the petitions were concluded much earlier in the liturgy and addressed to God the Father.”
Bednar was ordained in 1983 and retired in 2021, according to the website of the Diocese of Cleveland, suggesting he is around the same age as Father Tom of the Sunday afternoon Mass at my parish.
His position prompted another letter to the editor in the Journal on October 28. The rebuttal by Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, was titled “St. Michael Disrupts Only the Devil, Not the Liturgy.”
Bishop Paprocki pointed out that Bednar inaccurately described the St. Michael Prayer as ending the liturgy with a private devotion. He clarified that the prayer is recited “after Mass, which the priest and people are free to do. It isn’t a private devotion when prayed publicly.”
“Rev. Gerald J. Bednar is simply wrong to suggest that reciting the prayer to St. Michael is ‘out of place at the end of Catholic Mass,’” the bishop said.
“The end of Mass sends participants out on a positive mission, and while Rev. Bednar is correct in saying that the devil has no influence in God’s Kingdom, we aren’t there yet. Doing so together doesn’t hurt, and we pray it will help to invoke the intercession of St. Michael to defend us in our spiritual battles,” he added.
Back at my parish, Father Tom said a weekday morning Mass shortly after the regrettable incident near the altar. He told those present to do what they normally do regarding the St. Michael Prayer. He is no longer blocking the prayer’s recitation, but he won’t be leading it himself.
Robert Jenkins is a pseudonym for a Catholic writer living in Sacramento, California.