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Tag: satanists

  • Satanic Mass at Harvard Cancelled After Outcry

    The provocative “Black Mass” planned to take place at Harvard Extension School this week has been officially cancelled. The event had caused an outcry from Boston’s significant Catholic community.

    According to a WCVB Boston report, the event has now been cancelled. Event organizers had reportedly been unable to find a venue to perform the Black Mass.

    The Black Mass is a ritual of Catholic legend that is a perversion of the church’s Mass, which Catholics hold as sacred. No accounts of the specific ritual appeared before the mid-20th century, when the Black Mass began appearing in pulp novels.

    The reenactment of a Black Mass was to be performed by the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club as part of a performance series exploring cultural rituals. The event was originally to have taken place at the university’s Memorial Hall.

    When the plan became widely known the local Catholic community began putting pressure on the University to cancel the event. The university’s Dean of Students, Robert Neugeboren, issued a statement saying that Harvard Extension School “does not endorse the views or activities of any independent student organization,” but also said it supports “the rights of our students and faculty to speak and assemble freely.”

    Controversy over the event continued to escalate with Catholic leaders characterizing the Black Mass not as a cultural event but as simply a mockery of Catholic beliefs. Harvard President Drew Faust stepped into the issue on Monday, releasing a statement condemning the Black Mass but backing the Cultural Studies Club on free speech principles. From the statement:

    But even as we permit expression of the widest range of ideas, we must also take responsibility for debating and challenging expression with which we profoundly disagree. The ‘black mass’ had its historical origins as a means of denigrating the Catholic Church; it mocks a deeply sacred event in Catholicism, and is highly offensive to many in the Church and beyond. The decision by a student club to sponsor an enactment of this ritual is abhorrent; it represents a fundamental affront to the values of inclusion, belonging and mutual respect that must define our community. It is deeply regrettable that the organizers of this event, well aware of the offense they are causing so many others, have chosen to proceed with a form of expression that is so flagrantly disrespectful and inflammatory.

    According to WCVB, the event had been moved off-campus at the last minute. The Black Mass was to have taken place at an off-campus restaurant before the restaurant’s management declined to host. The event was cancelled after the club’s organizers were unable to find a suitable venue.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Satanist Westboro Protest Could Change Everything

    WebProNews writer Amanda Crum reported yesterday about the stylized counter-protest staged by Satanist’s against the Westboro Baptist Church. (See link below.) A small group of self-proclaimed Satanists gathered at the gravesite of Westboro leader Fred Phelps’ mother and performed a ritual they refer to as a “pink mass”, a rite that they say means that she is now “turned gay” for all eternity.

    Of course, Phelps and his followers can easily dismiss this as ridiculous. They can ignore it. They can use it to fuel even more of their own anti-gay protests. But what they can’t do is stop it from happening again. And this is where a stunt like this could really cost Westboro dearly. Because it strikes a blow at Westboro in a way that few other protests have not been able to do. It takes the battle to them.

    Counter-protests to Westboro’s activities are not new. Almost anywhere the group turns up nowadays, they are met with a group of locals that are intent on blunting their effectiveness. This is especially true when Westboro pickets funerals, whether they be of dead soldiers, children, or celebrities. People take the solemnity of a funeral seriously, and they will defend each other’s space and right to have an uninterrupted funeral. Common tactics include forming a cordon around the Westboro protestors to prevent their offensive signs being seen by passing funeral processions or graveside gatherings.

    The Westboro protest machine is lean and mean, and very efficient and effective. A common Westboro tactic is to send out a fax or email to press in a town, warning that Westboro protestors intend to come. This usually causes a bit of a stir in local media. Often local newspapers and television news runs with the story, leading people to believe that Phelps himself is coming. Most of the time the reality is far less than they fear. If anyone shows up at all, it usually a handful of rank and file Westboro members with signs. They hang out long enough for local press to get photos, including of any counter-protestors, then they hop back in their van and leave. Many times their total presence in a town is less than an hour. But they’ve made their mark.

    A protest like the Satanists staged at Phelp’s mothers grave goes further than responding directly to Westboro’s presence on a given day. It is retaliatory. And it is as offensive to Westboro members as the activities of Westboro itself are to others. For example, as part of the “pink mass” ceremony, a pair of gay men and a pair of lesbian women kissed over the grave, with photos to commemorate the occasion.

    But the coup de grâce came when the officiating member also got a photo laying his penis on the headstone. Now, anytime Phelps visits his mother’s grave, he will know that a Satanist’s penis was there.

    And this is where this particular protest is different. Most people who counter-protest Westboro are decent. They only want Westboro to stop. They don’t really do much of anything to offend back. Maybe they stage some “gay-looking” activity in the vicinity of the Westboro protest site. But that is over and done quickly. They don’t target Westboro members with violence or other offenses, even though a common question is, “How are these people still alive after what they do to others?” The answer is that most people – so far, everyone – are more decent than they are. Most people take the high road.

    This protest takes the fight to the enemy, Inglorious Basterds-style. If other groups come up with innovative ways to do more of the same – like the group that bought a house across from the church and painted it like a gay pride flag – the Westboro folks may suddenly find that this game isn’t fun for them anymore.

    (Be sure to read the facts of the Satanists’ protest, here.)

  • Satanists: Westboro Founder’s Mom Now Gay In Afterlife

    The Westboro Baptist Church, well known by now for their protests at any event they can use to promote their anti-gay agenda–including the funerals of soldiers and celebrities–is at the center of a controversy this week after members of Satanic Temple performed rituals over the gravesite of Catherine Idalette Johnston, the mother of founder Fred Phelps Jr.

    The rituals included gay couples and are referred to as a “pink mass”, and leaders of the organization say that their completion means Johnston is now gay for eternity, according to the beliefs of the church.

    “Fred Phelps is obligated to believe that his mother is now gay … [and] if beliefs are inviolable rights, nobody has the right to challenge our right to believe that Fred Phelps believes that his mother is now gay,” reads a statement on the group’s website.

    The message is clear: push your anti-gay agenda at rallies, and they’ll do more pink masses. The idea initially came about after the church threatened to plant themselves at the funerals of the Boston bombing victims.

    “We intend to perform the pink mass for both Fred Phelps’s father and great-aunt who raised him after his mother’s death, but only in reply to their future pickets. The pink mass could be used to protest other anti-gay hysterics, but it is particularly appropriate when applied to Westboro,” spokesman Lucien Greaves told Huffington Post.
    Image: Satanic Temple