Public Mass of reparation to counter satanic event at Civic Center Music Hall

A public Mass of reparation and Christian Assumption of Mary celebration is planned Monday to counter a ticketed satanic Mass event by a local satanic church.

The controversial Society of St. Pius X and its associated Bethany church, St. Michael’s Chapel, hosts what it’s calling a traditional Latin solemn high Mass at noon Monday in Bicentennial Park, 500 Couch Drive. The event precedes black Mass and Consumption of Mary ceremonies planned for 7 p.m. the same day at Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave., adjacent to the park.

Brian McCall, a St. Michael’s member and part of the event’s organizing committee, said he learned the details of Oklahoma City satanic Church of Ahriman’s planned Consumption of Mary ceremony from a June 29 Oklahoma Gazette story.

McCall said the traditional Latin solemn high Mass is necessary as an act of atonement in the state because the planned satanic rituals are an offense to God.

“We don’t want any harm to come to our state,” McCall said. “We love the state of Oklahoma, and we feel a public act is required to make some reparation for these things that are being done.”

The satanic church’s Consumption of Mary is a dark parody, or inversion, of the Christian Assumption of Mary celebration. The Consumption ritual involves symbolic black magic and the defiling and destruction of a Virgin Mary statue, among other things.

A private event would not typically elicit a response from the public or religious groups, but McCall believes the city condoned the black Mass by allowing Church of Ahriman to rent space in a municipal building.

click to enlarge Public Mass of reparation to counter satanic event at Civic Center Music Hall
Representatives from The Society of St. Pius X hold a Mass of reparation in 2014. | Photo The Society of St. Pius X / provided

However, Jennifer McClintock, Oklahoma City Parks & Recreation Department and Civic Center Music Hall public information manager, said private groups, event promoters and other organizations often rent space at Civic Center and hold events there. Publicity and promotion for those events is done by the renter, not the city.

She also said Oklahoma City does not “sanction,” endorse or promote events conducted in venue space rented by outside promoters.

“Based upon our need to follow the law, including the Constitution, we can’t deny anyone based on their beliefs,” she said.

St. Michael’s responded similarly when Church of Ahriman held a black Mass at the Civic Center in 2014, but McCall said the Mass of reparation was done inside a hotel instead of Bicentennial Park. McCall said organizers hope moving their event outdoors will give it a more public feel.

McCall said a public response to the black Mass event is important.

“I think one of their intentions is to do these things and get people used to them,” he said. “The first time [in 2014], there was a large-scale public reaction by even some in government. This time, it’s much less and we think some of the intention is, ‘OK, well, a lot of people get upset by this, but if we just keep doing it, they’ll just accept it.’”

Dastur Adam Daniels, Church of Ahriman religious leader and chief organizer of the Civic Center event, told the Gazette in an emailed statement that he is unfazed by the planned act of atonement.

The 2014 black Mass sparked debate over religious freedom and whether acts some consider religiously offensive should be held on public property. McCall said he believes Church of Ahriman members have no religion to be violated.

“It sort of illustrates that we don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore,” he said; he added that his definition of religion means “offering worship to God.” “These people, by their own definition, are doing the opposite of that.”

However, The Society of St. Pius X, to which McCall’s church belongs, also has drawn criticism and questions of legitimacy from Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit civil rights and public interest organization, for its recorded history of anti-Semitism. Religious Judaism stresses belief in God. A 2015 SPLC report called the society a “radical traditionalist Catholic” organization that split from the Catholic Church after its formation in 1970.

Print headline: Faithful healers, A religious group plans a Monday Mass of reparation at Bicentennial Park to counter a planned satanic event scheduled at Civic Center Music Hall.

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