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A remarkable and timely scene unfolded in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 25, 2025, when Cardinal Ernest Simoni, a 97-year-old Albanian who suffered under communist persecution, spontaneously recited the traditional exorcism prayer of Pope Leo XIII at the close of a pontifical Latin Mass. The Mass itself was celebrated by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke as part of the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage, and Simoni’s public prayer startled and inspired many faithful who have watched the Vatican drift toward novelty and compromise.
Cardinal Simoni’s life makes his action more than symbolic — it is a testimony from a man who endured imprisonment and torture and who has long practiced deliverance against evil; reciting the St. Michael exorcism was not a stunt but an act of pastoral courage rooted in suffering and faith. To see a man of his pedigree stand at the lectern in the heart of Catholicism and call for deliverance against satanic influence was a rebuke to the fashionable secularization creeping into sacred places.
The context matters: this dramatic prayer came after a string of events that many traditional Catholics view as desecrations of the basilica — episodes that included pagan rituals and a controversial procession that welcomed LGBT activists into the Holy Door during Jubilee celebrations. Those incidents convinced a growing number of believers that the Church’s custodians have sometimes favored accommodation over clarity, and Simoni’s prayer read like a spiritual response to a crisis of identity.
Cardinal Burke’s decision to celebrate the pontifical Latin Mass at the Altar of the Chair was itself a statement — a return to the venerable rite suspended in recent years and a visible stand for continuity and reverence in worship. The packed basilica and the evident joy of thousands of pilgrims show that the faithful are hungry for solemn liturgy that points to transcendent truth rather than chasing pastoral fashions.
For conservatives and faithful Catholics alike, this episode should not be dismissed as mere theatrics; it is a sober reminder that spiritual realities matter and that traditions are not sentimental trappings but bulwarks against moral and cultural collapse. We can argue about liturgical law and pastoral prudence, but the sight of a persecuted cardinal invoking heavenly protection in St. Peter’s challenges every complacent cleric and layman who has grown comfortable with a domesticated faith.
If anything good comes from this moment it will be a renewed resolve among believers to defend the sacred — to insist that Rome be a place of worship, not a stage for ideology — and to demand leaders who will guard the Church’s patrimony rather than dilute it. Let this be a rallying call for those who still believe that tradition, courage, and clear doctrine matter: pray, stay faithful, and refuse to let sacred spaces be normalized into mirrors of the culture at large.
