I'm sorry, mg, but what you say is preposterous, just like what you've said about the Nazi salutes. Priests don't have any reason to stop people from praying novenas, and parishes have no reason to salute Adolf Hitler. I dare you to talk to the priest in a nonconfrontational manner and get his side of the story.

I will say, however, that the novena I found is a bit much, and there are other Guadalupe novenas that have political and ideological agendas attached. Maybe there was something objectionable about the particular novena these people were using. In general, novenas, rosaries, and other "private" devotions are to be practiced separately from the Mass, and not appended to the official worship.

I had a pastor who stopped the Knights of Columbus from saying the rosary after Sunday Mass. Sounds horrible, doesn't it? What a horrible, horrible priest! Well, that ain't the whole story. The Knights, God bless 'em, wanted to start the rosary before the people were finished leaving church after Mass, and they insisted that everybody had to be absolutely quiet instead of greeting each other and engaging in normal conversation. The Knights would recite the rosary like a drill sergeant counting cadence. The priest first tried turning off the PA system so the Knights wouldn't be so domineering, but that didn't work. Finally, he told the Knights they had to wait ten minutes after Mass before they began the rosary, but the Knights didn't want to wait so long so they stopped saying the rosary. Eventually, a quiet, gentle group formed to say the rosary after Mass, and it wasn't a problem at all - quite unlike the Knights, whom I labeled the "Rosary Nazis."


So, mg, what's the whole story?

-Joe-