The Saint Michael prayer was composed by Pope Leo XIII after a private mass, apparently on a day in October in the 1880s. He apparently went into a stupor of some sorts and was thought by some people around him to have died, but after several minutes he came to, exasperated at a vision he saw.
In his vision reminiscent of the story of Job--some accounts describe it more like a locution--the devil boasted to Jesus that he could destroy the Church if given a century of time and more power to afflict it, which Jesus then permitted.
Revelation 20:
1 Then I saw an angel come down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the abyss* and a heavy chain.
2 He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, which is the Devil or Satan, and tied it up for a thousand years
3 and threw it into the abyss, which he locked over it and sealed, so that it could no longer lead the nations astray until the thousand years are completed. After this, it is to be released for a short time.
7 When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison.
8 He will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.
Apparently, the devil chose the 20th Century as the time in which his powers would be less constrained.
I am neither scholar nor prophet, but is what we're experiencing now, not the fruits of evils that were planted in the 20th Century?
