Black Mass Cancelled Amid Uproar As Cultural Studies Club Withdraws Sponsorship

The Crimson ^ | May 12, 2014

[NYer]

Madeline R. Lear

Hundreds gather in St. Paul Catholic Church for a holy hour Monday night in response to a planned reenactment of a Satanic black mass.

UPDATED: May 12, 2014, at 8:15 p.m.

The Harvard Extension School Cultural Studies Club has dropped its sponsorship of a re-enactment of a Satanic “black mass” ritual, which was scheduled to occur Monday evening at Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub. A spokesperson for the Satanic Temple, which was facilitating the black mass, said that the organization no longer plans to hold a black mass this evening.

The Harvard Extension School Cultural Studies Club originally said that it planned to relocate its reenactment of a Satanic black mass ritual, scheduled for Monday night, to an off-campus site, citing in an email that “misinterpretations about the nature of the event were harming perceptions about Harvard and adversely impacting the student community.”

The club wrote in its email around 5 p.m. that they planned for the event to be held at The Middle East nightclub in Central Square at 9 p.m. But Clay S. Fernald, the general manager of The Middle East, said Monday evening that the nightclub will not host the event, and that negotiations with the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club had fallen through.

Fernald declined to comment on why negotiations had ended.

Around 7 p.m., the Cultural Studies Club sent an email saying that they had been unable to find another location and would no longer sponsor the black mass.

The club emphasized in the 5 p.m. email that Harvard had not asked them to move the event from its previous location, the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub in the basement of Memorial Hall, and commended the University for affirming its members’ rights to free speech and assembly.

“Harvard always demonstrated that it understood its responsibility to defend protected student speech. That was always made clear to us,” the club wrote in a second email.

In response to the event’s relocation, Terrence Donilon, secretary of communications for the Archdiocese of Boston, said that the Catholic Church still condemns any re-enactment of the Satanic ritual, regardless of setting.

“Whether they have it at Harvard or at some other location, this is repugnant. No other community would stand u p for this,” he said. “We recognize that we’re a country that allows free speech, but we’re also a country that shares in the common good. There’s nothing good that comes out of desecrating the central element of the Catholic Church, which is the Eucharist.”

[Cicero]

Thanks, good to hear. I was class of ‘57. When I joined the Catholic Club after converting, it was just recovering from Fr. Feeney, who was excommunicating for saying that no one but Catholics could be saved. I remember hearing him preaching to that effect once or twice on the Boston Common.

I was Treasurer of the Catholic Club when we persuaded the Archbishop to allow us to buy a new building to house the club, since Fr. Feeney had made off with the old one. Until we met with him he was nervous that there might be a repetition of the Fr. Feeney episode.

After I left, I kept in touch with the Club with letters and newsletters until it went so far to the left under a new chaplain (the days of Liberation Theology) that I dropped contact. Good to hear that things have gotten better.

[sitetest]

Dear xzins,

It isn't altogether important what you think or what I think is reasonable or not. I understand where you'd place limits, and they're not much different from where I'd place limits. My point is, no one is asking us.

Regrettably, people are actually rationally arguing that if I hold up a sign with some words on it to the effect of, “Abortion kills an innocent human being.” that they have a right to destroy my sign and to attack me. My sign is being presented as the mirror image of this “black mass” business. And, if the “black mass” is held privately (which this mass was, ostensibly), then my sign is even worse than the “black mass.”

I don't find that reasonable, but unfortunately, enough people do that this sort of reasoning is becoming standard operating procedure in many places, including in many university communities.

sitetest

[xzins]

Sometime a solid parallel is a better argument than words. Demonizing/Dehumanizing versus Protesting.

Wonder what would fit?