My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 

Recently I was involved in a discussion about the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel that appeared in The Wall Street Journal, of all places! It started with a piece by Father Raymond J. de Souza, a priest in Ontario, Canada, who writes frequently for the National Catholic Register. In his “Houses of Worship” column that appeared in the print edition of The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 11, 2024, Father de Souza wrote, “Pious Christians often cringe when Donald Trump talks about religion. … Yet a pleasant surprise came on Sept. 29, the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, when Mr. Trump shared, without comment, a well-known prayer to the great saint.” Father de Souza added, “It’s a formidable prayer, one of my favorites, written by one of my favorite popes, Leo XIII, who reigned from 1878 through 1903. My parish prays it together after every Mass.”

That column prompted a letter to the editor from Rev. Gerald J. Bednar, a priest of the Diocese of Cleveland, which was published in the Oct. 22, 2024, print edition under the heading, “St. Michael Is Out of Place at the End of Catholic Mass.” In his letter, Father Bednar wrote, “In ‘Donald Trump Has a Prayer’ (Houses of Worship, Oct. 11), Raymond J. de Souza notes the resurgence of reciting the St. Michael prayer after Mass. The Holy See suppressed this practice in 1964 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. The end of Mass sends participants out on a positive mission, bidding them to expand God’s Kingdom through evangelization. St. Michael is known as the captain of the guardian angels and we should, by all means, ask for his help. But believers should accept the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist as their primary protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil — and respond to his call to enhance God’s Kingdom, where the devil has no influence.”

Seeing Father Bednar’s letter to the editor, I thought I needed to write a response, since we regularly say the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel after Mass in our diocese and I did not want people to conclude that Father Bednar was correct in saying that this “prayer interferes with the integrity of the Mass.” My own letter to the editor was published in the Oct. 28, 2024, print edition under the heading, “St. Michael Disrupts Only the Devil, Not the Liturgy.” In it, I wrote, “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’ (Letters, Oct. 22). He mistakenly says that it ‘ends the liturgy with a private devotion.’ The liturgy ends when the celebrant says, ‘Go forth, the Mass is ended,’ and the people reply, ‘Thanks be to God.’ The prayer, then, is recited after Mass, which the priest and people are free to do. It isn’t a private devotion when prayed publicly. 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.”

Several comments appeared online, including this question from Paul Larkin: “I note that the bishop did not address the assertion that in 1964 the Holy See directed the laity not to recite this prayer immediately after the mass concludes. If accurate, when was this rescinded?” I replied, “In 1964, the Sacred Congregation of Rites said in its instruction called Inter Oecumenici thatthe Leonine Prayers (that is, the Prayers of Pope Leo XIII) were suppressed. The St. Michael Prayer was one of those prayers, but there were several others, including three Hail Marys, the Hail Holy Queen, and a prayer for the Church. To say that these prayers were ‘suppressed’ meant they were no longer prescribed for recitation at the end of Mass, but it does not mean that these prayers were banned and can no longer be prayed. Groups of people often pray the rosary together after Mass in many churches. Similarly, the St. Michael Prayer may be recited after Mass by those who wish to do so, but it is not required. In 1994, Pope St. John Paul II recommended in a Regina Caeli Address that people pray the St. Michael prayer for the Church. In July 2013, Pope Francis consecrated the Vatican to the protection of St. Michael and St. Joseph, saying, ‘In consecrating Vatican City State to St. Michael the Archangel, I ask him to defend us from the evil one and banish him.’ In 2018, Pope Francis invited us to pray the rosary every day during the month of October and to pray each day to St. Michael the Archangel that he defend us against the attacks of the Devil. In 2020, Pope Francis encouraged a religious order named the Congregation of St. Michael the Archangel to continue promoting devotion to St. Michael the Archangel.”

We started praying the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel after Mass in our diocese after I mentioned it in my homily at the Masses of Welcome that were celebrated in each of our Deaneries in September 2010. In my homily, I laid out my vision for our diocese, saying, “I see a local Church where Catholics take their faith seriously, seek to grow in virtue and holiness, go to Mass every Sunday and participate regularly and actively in the sacramental life of the Church and the activities of their parishes; love God with all their heart and mind and soul and love their neighbor as themselves; bear witness to Christ in their daily lives; and promote respect for all human life from conception to natural death. … In short, I see a glimpse of God’s Kingdom already foreshadowed in the life of the Church and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet in the Eucharistic feast.” I then said, “The only real obstacle that prevents this vision from becoming reality in fact is sin. … Christ indeed has conquered sin and death. That is why it is good to remember the Prayer to St. Michael, which used to be prayed after every Mass and which we could still pray beneficially for our spiritual well-being:

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle;
Be our protection against the wickedness and 
Snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, 
Thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits 
Who wander about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”
May God give us this grace. Amen.