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«Moving away from legalism, let us be very clear what is happening: the Bishop is discouraging prayer in a church. It matters little if it is the prayer of St. Michael or another prayer, people praying after Mass is good. Having the faithful end Mass in communal thanksgiving rather than communal chatter (or running for the exits) is a good thing. I am indeed a radical in that I think prayer should be encouraged in church. We then of course come to the real reasoning behind these changes: the Bishop is correct that such prayers after Mass fell out of favor after the Second Vatican Council with the liturgical reforms. They returned to parish life in the United States in the wake of the Theodore McCarrick scandal, where the most prominent cardinal of the post-conciliar era was exposed as a vicious sexual predator who enjoyed the protection of the hierarchy, most notably Pope Francis, who waved penalties imposed by his predecessor despite knowing of the gravity of the evidence against McCarrick. While bishops of all stripes (who absolutely knew about all of this) expressed public statements of shock, horror and (most importantly) ignorance, the laity took matters into their own hands. They began publicly praying together after Mass in reparation for the scandal. It is true that Leo XIII originally instituted the prayers in the late 1800s for a resolution of “The Roman Question” about the independence of the Vatican. With that being solved in 1929, it was maintained by the priests and faithful as a way to still petition God and the heavenly court for assistance. It is against this backdrop that Bishop Beckman complains. He is upset that, 60 years after these devotions fell out of favor, they have returned among the faithful, and he is fearful of that. That this is all happening within the Novus Ordo means nothing. If the faithful can revive dormant traditions here, what else can they revive elsewhere? Given the increasingly conservative and traditional bent of the laity (especially among young active laity and priests) this is no longer a phantom. Bishop Beckman is of a class of many bishops appointed by Pope Francis in the final years of his life who view themselves as the last of a dying breed: authentic sons of the Second Vatican Council who must correct the natural course of events in the Church away from them, with force of law if necessary. In the carrying out of that mission, they find themselves lost in minutiae and the trench warfare of small details.» kmtierney.substack.com/p/whe…