TOPEKA, Kansas (LifeSiteNews) — Kansas’ governor has announced that a planned “black mass” and dedication of the state legislature to Satan must now take place outside the capitol, following backlash against the event.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly issued a statement on Wednesday explaining that, for safety and access reasons, she is ordering that the satanic event take place on the grounds outside the capitol rather than inside the building.
“I have been informed about concerns regarding an event at the Statehouse on March 28, and I share those concerns,” wrote Kelly, after over 30,000 people signed a petition addressed to her urging her to cancel the event. The petition was launched by the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP), a traditional Catholic group.
“There are more constructive ways to protest and express disagreements without insulting or denigrating sacred religious symbols,” she wrote in criticism of the Satanic Grotto, the Kansas-based independent Satanic group holding the event. The Satanic Grotto employs Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals and enjoys burning Christian symbols and harassing pro-life demonstrators.
“However, as governor, I also have a duty to protect protesters’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression, regardless of how offensive or distasteful I might find the content to be,” she continued. “Since these rights are constitutionally protected, the Governor’s Office has limited authority to respond to such actions.”
Some constitutionalists argue that the First Amendment does not protect satanism, as demonstrated by the fact that “anti-blasphemy laws were consistently upheld as compatible with free exercise of religion,” according to The American Conservative, until a shift after World War II.
The Satanic Grotto has explicitly declared their intent to commit blasphemy during their “black mass” event: “We will be performing rites to the Black Mass and indulging in sacrilegious blaspheme (sic),” the group wrote on a Facebook event page. “God will fall and Kansas will be embraced by the black flame of Lucifer.”
According to Harvard Law Review, “Until well into the twentieth century…the blackletter rule was clear. Constitutional liberty entailed a right to articulate views on religion, but not a right to commit blasphemy — the offense of ‘maliciously reviling God,’ which encompassed “profane ridicule of Christ.’”
Others argue that the First Amendment, while it is much revered by Americans, stems from a masonic and anti-Catholic idea of religious liberty and religious indifference.
In her statement, Kelly went on to stress the importance of keeping the capitol statehouse “open and accessible to the public while ensuring all necessary health and safety regulations are enforced.”
“Therefore, all events planned for March 28 will be moved outdoors to the grounds surrounding the Statehouse,” wrote Kelly, clarifying that “no protests” from any group, either satanic or Christian, “will be allowed inside the Statehouse on March 28.”
The Catholic bishops of Kansas have denounced the planned sacrilegious event and said they are exploring “spiritual and legal responses” to it.
They have asked that the faithful “pray for the conversion of those taking part in this event, as well as each person’s own conversion of heart during this sacred season of Lent.”
In response to the “black mass,” the faithful can also recite a prayer created especially to make reparation for blasphemy, which was revealed to Carmelite Sister Mary of St. Peter to wound “(Christ’s) divine Heart more grievously than all other sins.” Christ gave Sr. Mary of St. Peter the Golden Arrow prayer, to be recited in reparation for blasphemy:
May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored, and glorified in heaven, on earth, and in the hells, by all the creatures of God and by the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.