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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Black Mass Site Cleansed in Oklahoma

(CN) - The site of a satanic black mass has been "cleansed" and exorcised by Catholic priests to rid it of evil after-effects, Oklahoma church leaders say.

The Most Rev. Paul S. Coakley sued Adam Daniels and the Dakhma of Angra Mainyu Syndicate in Oklahoma County Court in August, claiming the Satanist group intended to " desecrate and destroy " a stolen consecrated host at its Sept. 21 event at the publicly owned Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City.

Coakley is the Roman Catholic archbishop in Oklahoma City.

Consecrated hosts are small, unleavened wafers of bread that have undergone transubstantiation and are viewed by Catholics as the blood and body of Jesus Christ.

"Defendants describe what they plan to do with the consecrated host at the black mass: 'The consecrated host is corrupted by sexual fluids, then it becomes the sacrifice of the mass,'" the original complaint stated.

"Defendants also plan to stomp on the consecrated host during the black mass. According to the defendants' website, black masses can include 'nudity, public urination, and other sex acts' and have included '[f]orms of bestiality along with animal sacrifice.'"

The defendants returned the consecrated host to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City in exchange for dismissal of the lawsuit with prejudice .

Even without the disputed item, the black mass went on as scheduled. The Satanists made "slight changes" to the black mass "so that a public viewing can occur without breaking Oklahoma's laws based on nudity, public urination, and other sex acts," the group said on its website.

Jennifer Lindsey-McClintock, spokeswoman for the Civic Center, told The Oklahoman that Coakley visited the venue early the next morning.

"It came about very quietly and was private," Lindsey-McClintock said on Thursday. "He felt very strongly about wanting to come in and perform a cleansing of that space of whatever entities he felt might remain."

Coakley said the archdiocese took seriously "the dark and dangerous spirits being invited into our community" from the beginning.

"We anticipated this would be a concern for those visiting the Civic Center, and we've received many questions about the safety of the building following the satanic ritual," the archbishop said in a statement Thursday.

"To address those concerns, we visited the venue the next morning to pray prayers of exorcism over the place and to pray the prayers for cleansing."

Coakley has expressed his concern to city officials who refused to cancel the black mass from taking place at a public facility.

"I have raised my concerns with city officials and pointed out how deeply offensive this proposed sacrilegious act is to Christians and especially to the more than 250,000 Catholics who live in Oklahoma," Coakley said in August.

"I am certainly concerned about the misuse of a publicly supported facility for an event which has no other purpose than mocking the Catholic faith. I am especially concerned about the dark powers that this satanic worship invites into our community and the spiritual danger that this poses to all who are involved in it, directly or indirectly."

Coakley asked his congregation to include the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel at the end of each Mass until Sept. 29.

Daniels and his group could not be reached for comment Thursday evening. He told The Oklahoman he was not surprised by the "cleansing" prayers.

"I find it hilarious how over-responsive he's being to all of this," Daniels said Thursday. "As I said before, [the black mass] is a deprogramming ritual to cast Christianity out of people. All they care about is their religious freedom and not anybody else's."

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