Adam Daniels, spokesman and organizer of the satanic black mass held on Sunday, September 21, in CitySpace, a small theater in the basement of the Civic Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, said he sold almost 90 tickets to his event. But according to local reports, only about 40 or 50 people attended.
These represent a small fraction of the “hundreds” of overwhelmingly Christian protesters demonstrating and praying peacefully outside the Civic Center, and an even tinier fraction of the overflow crowd that showed up across town at St. Francis of Assisi Church for a Benediction and prayer service with Archbishop Paul Coakley.
Following the service was a Eucharistic Procession through city streets, in which a Consecrated Host–a communion wafer that undergoes transubstantiation through a ritual conducted by a priest and becomes the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ–is put into a decorative holder and walked slowly under a canopy, accompanied by clerics and lay people.
As reported by Breitbart News, prior to the black mass taking place, a pilfered Consecrated Host intended to be used at the black mass was at the center of a legal tussle between Daniels and the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Southern California-based attorney Michael Caspino, in association with an Oklahoma City law firm, filed a suit that demanded the return of the illicitly obtained Host, using an argument based both in Church law and civil property-rights statutes.
After at first claiming he would not return the Host, Daniels capitulated the next day, substituting, as he wrote in a statement, “course [sic] black bread” in the ritual, which also toned down other elements–including nudity and public use of urine–to comply with local laws.
Here’s video from NewsOK, the online presence of The Oklahoman newspaper, of what transpired at the Civic Center:
Also, click here for NewsOK’s photo gallery of the black mass and the protests.
Oklahoma state legislator Rebecca Hamilton, who also blogs under Public Catholic for the Catholic section of the Website Patheos, did not attend the protests or the black mass, but she did go to the prayer service at St. Francis of Assisi.
Talking on Monday to Breitbart News, Hamilton said she arrived an hour ahead of time, but the church was already full, and she was ushered into an already-packed school gymnasium.
“It wasn’t thousands,” she said of the crowd. “I saw one report that said 3,000. It wasn’t 3,000, but I feel comfortable saying it could have been between 1,200 and 1,500.”
Hamilton, who converted to Catholicism in 2002, said she almost didn’t make it.
“I tell ya,” she stated, “it was a little bit rougher than you think. It was a lot more than just going to a church service and sitting through it. It was a really emotional experience. Actually, it started several days before, but it reached a horrendous peak on Saturday, just the most painful spiritual crisis I’ve experienced since I converted.”
Hamilton said she began to have many negative emotions, relieved somewhat by attending a vigil Mass on Saturday evening. But later that night, she was struck by gastrointestinal distress.
“It hit me,” she said, “this is the devil. I was up until 5 o’clock in the morning. I was sick. I got up to go do this, and everything in me did not want to go. By this time, I believed Satan was fighting me.”
Hamilton says she prayed for guidance about whether she should go, and a verse from Psalms, Chapter 97, came to her: “All who serve idols are put to shame; who glory in worthless things; all gods bow down before Him.”
Hamilton interpreted that as an affirmative answer to her question about going to the church, and she declared that it was worth it.
“The interesting thing is,” Hamilton said, “all the sickness, the terrible blinding headache, all of it went away, after I prayed at that service. It just left. I walked out of there feeling cleansed and very close to Christ, realizing, and reoriented, understanding that we have to stand up to evil, that you can’t ever fight the devil using the devil’s weapons.”
“Hatred and rage and anger and resentment and malic, those things are the devil’s weapons. God gives us peace and love,” she added.
The goal of a black mass is to present a parody of a Catholic Mass, and, if possible, to desecrate a Consecrated Host. Ultimately, that didn’t happen, and in his homily at the prayer service, Archbishop Coakley spoke of why it was so important to prevent that desecration. He referred to the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, which Catholics believe established the theology of Christ being truly present under the appearance of bread and wine.
He said:
At times, Christians have argued over the theological significance of [Christ’s] words. Satan, on the other hand, hears those words and trembles. The Eucharist has been at the heart of the current controversy over the so-called black mass (which to our shame as a city) is being allowed to proceed this evening at the Civic Center Music Hall.
That blasphemous and sacrilegious ritual is a mockery of the Catholic Mass that requires for its consummation the corruption and desecration of the Eucharist. Why? Because satanists, and their master, know who is present. They acknowledge the Real Presence of the Lord Jesus, not to adore him, but only to mock and to scorn in hatred.
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