A planned re-enactment of a satanic black Mass by a Harvard University student club was cancelled only hours before its scheduled start on May 12.
After protests that the event was offensive to Catholics, the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club initially decided to move the event off campus.
But another venue could not be found, so the club dropped its sponsorship of the re-enactment.
It was to have been performed by members of the New York-based Satanic Temple.
The Boston Globe reported that temple spokesman Lucien Greaves saying a black mass was performed later at a nearby bar, but this was not verified.
A consecrated host was not used, reportedly.
Greaves said he understood re-enactment organisers received lot of vitriolic hate mail.
The initial plan to hold a black mass on the Harvard campus prompted widespread outrage.
The Archdiocese of Boston held a eucharistic procession and a holy hour at a church near Harvard at the same time the event was originally scheduled.
More than 1500 people packed the Catholic church.
Among them was Harvard president Drew Faust, who earlier had decried the student sponsorship of the planned re-enactment as “abhorrent”, but also defended students’ right to free speech.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston had called the planned black mass “repugnant”.
“There’s a great fascination with evil in the world, but you know, it doesn’t lead to anything good,” Cardinal O’Malley told the Boston Globe.
Nearly 60,000 students, alumni, and faculty members signed a petition against holding the black mass on campus, according to a statement released by Harvard Rhodes scholar and Catholic Aurora Griffin.
The Harvard Extension club has continuously urged critics to widen their understanding of satanic worship.
On May 9, an unidentified spokesperson said the re-enactment was meant to be educational, not offensive.
The spokesperson told the Boston Globe that many satanists are animal rights activists, vegetarians, and artists with a strong sense of community.
Sources
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