Leonine Prayers

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LEONINE PRAYERS

The prayers ordered by Leo XIII to be said kneeling (and usually in the vernacular) after low Mass; they comprised the Hail Mary (three times), salve regina, (Hail Holy Queen) with versicle, response and oration, and a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. To these the addition of an ejaculatory prayer to the Sacred Heart was recommended by St. Pius X in 1904. Although prayers of this kind had been in use in the Papal States since 1859, Leo XIII extended them to the whole church on Jan. 6, 1884. In 1886 a slight change was made in the oration and it was then that the St. Michael prayer was added. The prayers were first ordered because of loss of the Papal States, but after the 1928 lateran Treaty, Pius XI ordered them recited for Russia. After various curtailments, they were suppressed on Sept. 26, 1964.

Bibliography: r. e. brennan, "The Leonine Prayers," American Ecclesiastical Review 125 (Washington, DC 1951) 8594.

[f. a. brunner/eds.]