The need for spiritual warfare against sacrilege
This past fall, just before All Hallow’s Eve, Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer of Georgia sent out a message petitioning the faithful throughout his diocese and beyond it for prayers of reparation and penance, in order to atone for the sacrilege of a Black Mass, which was to be held by the Satanic Temple of Atlanta.
The profane ritual was alleged to involve the desecration of a consecrated Host. The report of a stolen Host proved to be a false claim; nonetheless, the sacrilege in any Satanic ritual is undeniable.
Archbishop Harmayer said, “Using a consecrated Host they claim they obtained illicitly from a Catholic church and desecrating it in the vilest ways imaginable, the practitioners offer it in sacrifice to Satan.”
Had this particular event been less publicized, it would likely have followed this standard protocol.
Only five months later, in March 2025, news broke that a second Black Mass was to be held at the Kansas State Capitol. This time, a consecrated Host was present, and the Satanic leader at the gathering, while spewing blasphemies, “threw the Host onto the ground and stomped on it with rage” moments before a faithful protester intervened, retrieved the Host and consumed it.
The simple fact that Satanists were permitted to desecrate the Eucharist without ramification, much less that they obtained a permit to hold this ritual in a municipal space which operates under the banner “In God we trust” and the maxim of “freedom of religion,” is a reality both heinous and absurd. It ought to be met with the outrage it merits.
Satanism is a destructive and vapid ideology, existing in order to destroy, and therefore it cannot be dignified as a religion. Since witchcraft and the dark arts have begun to infect our beloved homeland, it is necessary now to combat the occult with as much heavenly aid as possible.
Today, in the midst of Holy Week, it is important more than ever to fight for our God. We are not islands, isolated and ineffectual; we are not alone. The angelic realm readies to ally with us in battle even now.
Especially during this Sacred Triduum, it is incumbent upon us to not only acknowledge the spiritual realm, but to seek reparations for the atrocities committed by our demonic oppressors. We are not the Church Militant because the name sounds cool. We are fighting a war, and because of your baptism, you have been drafted.
Blessed Bartolo Longo was a university student, your age and mine, when he reviled the Catholic Church and joined the cult of Satanism. He became a Satanic priest and even promised his soul to a demon.
His family, having discovered this, prayed earnestly for Bartolo’s reparation and conversion. Soon after, Bartolo returned to the Catholic faith and became a third order Dominican, dedicating his life to preaching Christ to those enslaved by the occult.
If this miraculous conversion shows us anything, it is the unparalleled power of prayer, especially prayers of reparation joined with penance, in which Bartolo himself partook in his journey toward sainthood. As Catholics, we have a solemn duty to join ranks this week with the legions of angels preparing for battle against the Satanic forces, which are clearly afflicting our country.
This week, please pray for continued reparations against Satanic sacrilege. Invoke Our Lady of Perpetual Help through the power of the rosary and join the Angelic Warfare Community on campus.
As Archbishop Hartmayer beautifully reminds us, “Pray for those who do not yet know of [Christ’s] love for them.”
In Feb. 2025, Pope Francis approved the canonization of Bartolo Longo. Blessed Bartolo Longo, soon to be a saint, pray for us!
Rebecca Dalsass is a junior English major. She is the Book Study Officer for the Thomistic Institute at the University of Dallas.