Bishop defends St. Michael’s prayer at Mass: ‘The devil has no influence’

CNA Staff, Nov 2, 2024 / 07:00 am

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, this week responded to a letter in the Wall Street Journal from a priest objecting to the praying of the St. Michael prayer at the end of Mass, asserting that the priest’s view is “simply wrong.”

In a letter to the editor published Oct. 21, Father Gerald J. Bednar, a retired priest of the Diocese of Cleveland, wrote that the Vatican “suppressed this practice in 1964 because the prayer interferes with the integrity of the Mass.”

Bednar proffered his view that praying the St. Michael prayer after Mass “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,” Bednar wrote.

“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,” the priest concluded.

In a response letter published Oct. 27, Paprocki disputed Bednar’s assertion that praying to St. Michael after Mass “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,” Paprocki wrote. 

“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.”

St. Michael the Archangel is one of the four principal angels and is described in the Bible as a “great prince” who battles against Satan in defense of God’s people. 

Following an 1884 vision of Satan “running riot” on the planet, Pope Leo XIII composed three prayers to St. Michael, the briefest of which he commanded should be prayed at the end of every Mass.

That prayer is as follows:

St. 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 divine power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

The prayer to St. Michael was a regular feature of the Mass until the Vatican II era, though Pope John Paul II in 1994 urged Catholics to make the prayer a regular part of their lives. Devotion to St. Michael is still widely promoted today, including by Pope Francis.