As Kansas Catholics pray, a Satanic group’s “black mass” turns violent, with arrests

A Satanic group’s effort to conduct a “black mass” at the Kansas Statehouse 28 March turned violent, leading to arrests, while across the street the state’s Catholic archbishop led hundreds in peaceful prayer before the Eucharist for those who “seek to mock our merciful God.”

Satanic Grotto founder and president Michael Stewart was taken into custody at the Capitol by Kansas Highway Patrol.

Also arrested was counter protestor Marcus Schroeder, whom Stewart struck in the face after Schroeder twice sought to grasp a piece of paper from Stewart’s hands, amid an apparent invocation of Satan in the Capitol rotunda.

Two others were arrested that day as well: Jocelyn Frazee and Sean Anderson. Prior to entering the Statehouse, Stewart violently kicked an unidentified man who dove to save retrieve and consume fragments of a host that Stewart ground under his heel and claimed was the Eucharist.

Video shows Stewart viciously kicking the man on the ground before officers intervened.

Amid the demonstrations, Archbishop Joseph F Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, celebrated Mass with Eucharistic adoration at Assumption Church, located across the street from the Capitol.

He urged Christians to pray for “mercy and grace” for themselves and for the Satanists engaged in mockery of God and their faith, encouraging them to be “close to Jesus.”