Satanic Sect Obtains Public Recognition

Founded in 2013 by Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, the “Satanic Temple” organization is a contradictory cult: on the one hand, it claims a militant atheism by claiming to be non-theistic in demonstrating its will to fight against conservative Christians, but on the other hand it does not hesitate to assert itself as a religion, in order to benefit from the largesse of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which defends religious freedom.

The Satanic Temple, according to its founders, is a new expression of “the Church of Satan,” another sect that demonstrates its satanism more fanatically, which makes it less respectable. Nevertheless, it remains an anti-Christian organization that adores the one whom Christ fought on earth, the prince of this world.

Religious Freedom for Satanists

On October 8, 2019, cadets at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, were informed by the administration that Satanic Temple worshipers could now meet at the military school to “promote a thoughtful and a critical debate on satanic values.”

US Naval Academy spokesman Alana Garas said, “Recently, several students professing the convictions of the Satanic Temple have come together to request a meeting space, to discuss their beliefs and to share them.”  And he then added, blandly, that “they asked for a ‘study space’ and not a space to hold ‘satanic services.’’ So there will be no Satanic masses on the military campus ... But they will preach the Beast of the earth and the sea (cf. Apoc. 13).

The Satanic Temple claims today about 100,000 followers in the United States and Canada. Since April 2019, the sect has managed to obtain the envied status of a “religion” in the United States, as granted by the IRS.

This is a distressing example of the application of religious freedom, which permeates American history and culture. This freedom was imported to the Second Vatican Council by the American Jesuit John Courtney Murray, one of the drafters of the declaration Dignitatis humanae (December 7, 1965). By following the letter as the spirit of this document which now permeates the speeches of Church authorities, no one can refuse to any group this recognized right of the power, in private as in public, to spread its errors and practices.

Gens humana per vetitum—the human race rushes into that which is forbidden—wrote Horace in his Odes, denouncing the proud audacity of men revolting against the gods. A maxim on which the officials of the US Navy should be interested in meditating, at the risk of suffering a fatal shipwreck ... a spiritual one this is.