That’s Life With the Devil

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Last Sunday, CNN's "That's Life with Lisa Ling" featured a show on The Satanic Temple of Detroit and its unveiling of a nine-foot demon statue in Detroit this past summer. The show was sympathetic to the Detroit satanists, portraying them as misunderstood and persecuted by Christian "bigots."

During the show, Ling interviews the chapter director of the Temple, "Jex Blackmore," who works at the Detroit Institute of Arts under her real name, Andrea Potti.

Potti tells Ling how she went to a crisis pregnancy center pretending to be pregnant. The center is harming women, she claims, because staff tried to convince her not to have an abortion. Potti says she's not pro-abortion; she just wants women to make their own "informed" decisions. After all, Planned Parenthood never pressures anybody into having an abortion or donates the baby's organs without the consent of the mother.

Potti's comment about not being pro-abortion is a baldfaced lie. Recently, she proudly blogged every step of her own abortion, calling it the "Unmother Project" — a fitting name for the murder of her child. And earlier this year, she led The Satanic Temple in a counter-protest to the nationwide Planned Parenthood protest, in which the satanists poured gallons of milk on bound women, shouting "Hail Satan!" If blogging and public protests don't make you pro something, then what does?

As an aside, apparently using an alias like "Jex Blackmore" is common practice amongst satanists. Another member of the Temple, Doug Mesner goes by the alias "Lucien Greaves," while yet another satanist in Oklahoma, Adam Daniels, a registered sex offender, has gone by the alias "Adam Smith." But I digress.

At one point in the show, Ling interviews a new member of The Satanic Temple: a mother named "Nikki." Ling asks Nikki if she blames the Church for her gay son's suicide. "Absolutely," says Nikki. "There's a lot of people who are hurting because of these Christian precepts." Nikki goes on to explain that she joined the satanists because they "understand my pain, my anger."

CNN went to great pains to show that the Detroit satanists aren't radical devil worshippers. The CNN promotional article reads:

When you think of satanism, images of pierced, black-clad youths gathering at night, listening to hardcore death metal music and sacrificing animals may come to mind. But you might be surprised to learn that many satanists are a lot more interested in community activism and individual freedoms.

Ironically, this misguided imagery perfectly captures the members of Detroit's Satanic Temple. They wear black clothing, have tattoos, piercings and fake names, pay punk groups like Sadist to perform at their events, and have secret meetings with candles and bizzare rituals in cemeteries, including "Pink Masses" where gays and lesbians engage in lewd behavior over tombstones to make the deceased spirit "gay." So if the word "satanist" brings disturbing images to mind, then the Satanic Temple shouldn't surprise you at all.

The Temple says it wants to express its "religious beliefs" through symbolic art. The CNN feature shows one of the satanists spraying fake blood on a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is becoming a common practice; another satanic group in Oklahoma is also planning on desecrating the Blessed Virgin on Christmas Eve. The Detroit chapter claims to promote religious freedom, but its actions show its hypocrisy; members openly mock and attack authentic religion.

On the day of the unveiling, Ling also interviewed ChurchMilitant.com, which protested the event with our own statue of St. Michael the Archangel. When Ling asked whether satanists have the right to express their views, ChurchMilitant.com's Rodney Pelletier responded, "Nobody has a right to error."

The CNN feature showed what appeared to be nothing more than a wild party taking place at the unveiling of the Baphomet statue. Their footage was so exclusive, it excluded any video of the homosexual debauchery that took place on the statue and the cries of "Hail Satan!" ChurchMilitant.com knows this because we were there and witnessed it:

In the end, the CNN feature wasn't really about The Satanic Temple as much as it was an attack on the Catholic Church and the culture of life. The faithful would do well to remember the words of Our Lady of Fatima: to pray and do penance in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly named Doug Mesner as a sex offender. We regret the error and have corrected it.

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