Priests in the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, have been ordered to stop praying the St Michael Prayer and other traditional devotions following Mass in an October 16 letter from Bishop Mark Beckman.
“Prayers (but not all of them) are vital elements in the Mass liturgy,” said Bishop Beckman in the letter, which was published online by The East Tennessee Catholic.
The bishop noted that, as he had travelled throughout the diocese, which covers eastern Tennessee, “I have noticed that in some of our parishes additional prayers, including the Prayer to St Michael, the ‘Prayer of St Francis’, a Prayer to the Holy Spirit, and others have been added regularly to the liturgy — recited together, sometimes before the entrance hymn, or immediately after the dismissal”.
