More than 1,000 Catholic and non-Catholic Christians rallied outside the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall on Sunday, to unite in prayer against a black mass organized by Adam Daniels, a self-proclaimed Satanist leader of the Dakhma of Angra Mainyu Syndicate.
The black mass, held in the basement of the Music Hall, was attended by only about 40 to 50 people.
In an interview with the Tulsa World prior to the black mass, Daniels said: “This is not a game. It’s very serious to us. This will be held as a real black mass, altered to follow state laws.”
Daniels told the World reporter by phone that when his group conducts the black mass in private, it involves sex, urine, and nudity, but that the ceremony held at the civic center would be “toned down” to comply with state law. Otherwise, he said it would be a genuine Satanic ritual.
The purpose of the black mass is to “deprogram” people from the influences of Catholicism and Christianity, Daniels said.
According to Daniels’ website, the event was created to “celebrate the perversion of the Catholic Mass.”
While all Christians are offended by the Satanic group’s attack on their Lord and Savior and their replacement of worship of Jesus with worship of Satan, Catholics were especially outraged, since the Satanic ritual is a parody and mockery of the central element of their Christian worship. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the Eucharist (Greek for “thanksgiving”) — the sacrament that is an integral part of the Mass — as “the source and summit of the Christian life.”
Daniels told the World that the black mass would include a ritual denouncing Jesus Christ and stamping on and spitting on a wafer representing the Communion host. Contrary to earlier reports, the Satanists did not use an actual consecrated host, which would have been a much more grievous sacrilege to Catholics, who take the words of Jesus at the Last Supper literally and believe that His commission to “do this in remembrance of me” imparts to the priest celebrating Mass the power to transform the bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ. This act is called “transubstantiation.”
As a historic example of the high degree of reverence Catholics have for the consecrated hosts, during the Spanish Civil War, when Communists were burning Catholic churches, some Catholics risked their lives to rescue the hosts from the flaming buildings.
The Tulsa World reported that the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City sued Daniels, demanding that he return a consecrated host stolen from a Catholic Church. The case ended when an attorney representing Daniels turned over the host to a priest of the archdiocese. Daniels said he had obtained the host from a friend, and he believed it had been consecrated at a Catholic Mass.
Even the symbolic sacrilege perpetrated by Daniels and his followers was more than enough for many, however. Among these was Jim Jones, Sr., who came to Oklahoma City with hundreds of others from St. Marys, Kansas. Most of those from the town were part of a community centered around Saint Mary’s Academy and College, operated by the traditionalist Catholic Society of St. Pius X.
In a phone interview with The New American, Jones stressed that his group did not come to Oklahoma City to stage a protest, but to pray. They “were there for reparation for the blasphemy.” Jones said the group’s prayer gathering “was the most orderly, well organized, well received demonstration I’ve ever seen.”
Speaking in the video A Response to the Oklahoma City Black Mass, Fr. Daniel Themann, who teaches at the Society of St. Pius X’s Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, said, “Catholics find, in the Mass, the ability to express the generosity they have for God.” In contrast, “A black mass, though, or any Satanic ritual, is a mockery of this very sacred act, this very expression of the perfect love that God has for man and so obviously it’s very dangerous. It brings the participants to hate God. In light of that, the gravity of that, the Society of St. Pius X called for a public Mass of reparation.”
As many people of faith gathered outside the civic center, an estimated 1,200 people crowded into St. Francis of Assisi Church to attend a prayer service led by Paul Coakely, the archbishop of the Catholic diocese of Oklahoma City. The church was crowded beyond capacity and the overflow filled an adjacent gym and cafeteria, while approximately 400 others gathered outside to hear the service broadcast over speakers, reported Fox News. Coakley told those who attended that Oklahoma City had been targeted by “dark forces,” but stated that, as Christians, “we know that Christ conquered Satan. The war has been won, Christ has conquered, though skirmishes will continue until Christ comes to reign forever.”
Following the service, attendees marched in a procession to the Civic Center, where others from around the region had gathered to pray against the Satanic ritual.
Some of those who came to witness to their faith and pray outside the Civic Center made statements to the media covering the event. Joe Helten, Jr. told KSN-TV: “[The black mass] very offensive, yes, if they realized what Christ did for us, dying on the cross.”
“They’re using a public facility, the civic center down in Oklahoma City,” Michelle Nichols told KSN. “That’s a little bit spooky that they are becoming that blatant.” “We just want to make our voices heard, go down there and adore our Lord in reparation for the offenses that will be committed against Him tonight,” Nichols added.
Daniels also told NBC in Oklahoma City how his group goes about parodying the Mass celebrated by Catholic and Orthodox Christians. “We give a blessing and offering to Satan. We’re censoring it, doing all the things that is [sic] normally done to bless a sacrifice, which is obviously the host, the body of Christ, then you’re taking that and we re-consecrate it the way the devil does.”
Daniels said his black mass would follow a ritual created by the late Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible.
When the Tulsa World reporter asked Daniels if he considers Satan good, or if he believes he is worshiping an evil being, Daniels replied that “Satan” is a title that means “adversarial king.”
“My devil is an equal anti-cosmic spirit that is the antithesis to what most call God,” he claimed.
While Daniels describes Satan as an adversarial king, the numbers indicate that the Prince of Darkness obviously has far fewer subjects in Oklahoma City than the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.
People of faith in Oklahoma should also be encouraged by a ruling from District Judge Thomas Prince, who on September 19 granted a motion filed on behalf of the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission to block the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union that attempted to have a Ten Commandments monument removed from the grounds of the Oklahoma Capitol. The monument was authorized by the state legislature in 2009 and erected in 2012 after Republican state Rep. Mike Ritze and his family paid nearly $10,000 for it.
The plaintiffs in the case had alleged that the monument’s location violated the state Constitution’s ban against using public property to support “any sect, church, denomination or system of religion.” AP reported that the judge ruled that the monument serves a secular — not religious — purpose and that the small plot on the north side of the state capitol on which it stands is part of a 100-acre complex that has 51 other monuments.
Photo shows worshipers of the Prince of Peace praying outside the Oklahoma City Civic Center where a black mass worshiping the Prince of Darkness was held later in the day: screen-grab from Society of St. Pius X video A Response to the Oklahoma City Black Mass.
