Saturday, May 10, 2014

Black Mass at Harvard

The Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club is holding and promoting a Black Mass on Monday. The Catholic Church isn't exactly happy, but then we wouldn't expect them to join in as an ecumenical gathering for this event. The Boston Archdiocese responded on Facebook with this (and more):

"The Catholic community in the Archdiocese of Boston expresses its deep sadness and strong opposition to the plan to stage a “black mass” on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge."

The Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club is utilizing the Satanic Temple in New York City to run the Mass as a cultural experience. The Satanic Temple are the same people who held a "Pink Mass" on the grave of Fred Phelps' (of God Hates Fag fame) mother. The Pink Mass supposedly transformed Fred Phelps' mother into a lesbian in the afterlife. Uhm, the Pink Mass may have been nice Carnivalesque theater, I suppose, but a pretty childish act.

So, Harvard is now home to Black Masses and upset Catholics. All I can say is, "What did you expect from a college whose president is named Faust?" :-) Yes, It's true. The President of Harvard is Drew Faust.

Sometimes, fact is stranger than fiction. Get some silly Satanists together at a University in a predominantly Catholic city and you've got a story, but it's not worth much more than a byline and a laugh. It may say something about the nature of our eclectic experimental spirituality in America today, and it may say something about a growing divide between the secular and the religious, but those are not anything new. We experience spiritual weirdness every single day in America.