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Last weekend’s return of a solemn Pontifical Latin Mass to St. Peter’s Basilica was not a soft cultural footnote — it was a statement. Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, a stalwart defender of the Church’s ancient liturgy, celebrated before thousands of pilgrims on October 25, 2025, a moment that conservative Catholics rightly see as a corrective to years of liturgical drift.
What made the moment electric was what happened at the close: 97‑year‑old Cardinal Ernest Simoni, himself a long‑time exorcist, stepped to the lectern and recited Pope Leo XIII’s powerful Prayer to St. Michael — the longstanding prayer of deliverance meant to cast out spiritual evils. That public recitation inside the very basilica that has seen strange innovations in recent years felt, to many faithful, like a necessary reclaiming of sacred ground.
Cardinal Simoni is no theatrical oddity; he is a survivor of brutal communist persecution who endured long prison terms for his faith and who has ministered as an exorcist for decades. His life story gives weight to his actions: when a man who has stared down real-world totalitarian evil prays for deliverance, ordinary Christians should pay attention.
Cardinal Burke — founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse and a leading voice for tradition in the Church — has consistently framed the recent Mass and the St. Michael prayer as more than ceremony. He stressed that invoking deliverance is about restoring order, repentance, and the spiritual welfare of souls in an age that increasingly celebrates secular vice and confusion. Conservatives who love liturgy and common sense welcome that argument.
Let’s be blunt: the basilica has not been untouched by scandal in recent years, from the Pachamama episode to public displays that left many Catholics outraged and asking for reparation. The fact that a cardinal with real experience fighting evil would offer the Church a prayer of deliverance in that sacred place is a rebuke to the bishops and clerics who have allowed novelty and accommodation to erode reverence. America’s faithful should see this as a wake‑up call.
This episode is a reminder to patriotic, churchgoing Americans that our spiritual battles are real and that institutions crumble when they abandon truth. We should support leaders who defend time‑tested worship, demand accountability for sacrilege, and encourage prayer — especially the kind of steadfast prayer that Cardinal Simoni has lived and Cardinal Burke preaches. The answer to cultural decay is not capitulation; it is courage, conviction, and a return to the spiritual disciplines that made Western civilization great.
