how else they gonna take you seriously

This is another strange religious freak-out, feel free to skip if that's not your thing.

So, Robert Ritchie of the America Needs Fatima group (I have a thing for Lourdes and Fátima, sue me) is freaking out again--this time because of a convention in Louisiana.

Yes. Really.

Dear Ms. [Emilly Orr],

Hi there!

"Everyone therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven."

(Matthew 10:32)

URGENT: on August 9 – 11, the Bourbon Orleans Hotel is planning to host HexFest: A Weekend Of Witchery.

Now, from my perspective, that's fine. I've been to alternate religious festivals, both the camping-in-the-woods versions, and the booked-into-hotel versions. They're fun. I've learned a lot about forms of faith that aren't mine, and it never once challenged my own faith.

O Virgin Mother, Help Us!

Oh, calm down.

Here’s their plan, and make no mistake...this is part of a full-blown, ongoing, nationwide assault on the remnants of Christian Civilization in our dear American society.

Um, point one: Christianity is a "remnant"? I thought it was the majority religion, at least in the US. Point two: A convention in one single hotel is an "full-blown, ongoing, nationwide assault"? How so? Are you expecting the hotel to lift from its moorings and stagger around the country, infecting other hotels with eeeeevil?

• HexFest is a gathering of "Witches, root workers, Voodoo priests and other magical teachers from within New Orleans and around the world..."
• For the witches, its opening ritual on the riverboat Creole Queen will "align us to the energies of the work to come."
• It "will feature an invocation of the spirits of New Orleans while the Dragon Ritual Drummers invoke the spirits with powerful percussion!"
"It is to honor the Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau."

Okay, none of that sounds worthy of this level of hysteria.

Last year, we organized an on-site rosary rally of reparation for this evil event. But prior commitments and activities this year make doing an on-site protest very unlikely. So I'm asking thousands of our email friends to make prayerful reparation at home. Prayer is so POWERFUL!

I bet. But let me get this straight, they did this last year, and you protested? I was on your list last year, why didn't you completely lose your mind over it then?

Also, this "rosary rally"--you mean, what, you stood outside the hotel and read the rosary loudly at the building? Okaay...

So May I Count On You To Console Our Lady
For This Weekend Of Witchery
By Making A Powerful
Act of Reparation

Yes, every time I've bolded text, that means the original email had bolded text. And yes, the original of this rote quartet (repeated ad nauseum below) was not just bolded and centered, but also in a much larger font.

• Followed by Litany of The Blessed Virgin Mary
• And the "Short Exorcism Prayer to St. Michael"

It might not seem like much on our part, but when The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Michael the Archangel present our pledges to The Blessed Trinity...well, nothing is impossible for God, Whose Spirit will be gladdened by our little effort of love for Him.

Sure, there's nothing wrong with prayer if you believe in it. And I've never turned down anyone offering to pray for me, whether they're of my faith or not. I treat it as a demonstration of care, not an offense.

But.

If what you're telling people to do, Ritchie, is to stand in front of the hotel and stage a peaceful protest while praying, great. More power to you. Have at it. Make sure you get the proper permits from the city, for anyone who does actually go to do it in person.

How'ver, if what you're actually telling people to do is send negativity and psychic bile towards this event, is that really the best use of your energy, or the people following you? If you truly believe witchcraft is that challenging to your faith (and if your faith is secure, nothing will challenge it, so...if you feel challenged, your faith is weak), then praying for their hearts to change, without animosity, seems in line with Christianity and Catholicism, right? Not praying for them to die, or for the hotel to burn down, or for their brains to explode, right? Can we agree that is anti-Christian to do?

So, if every one of us reading this email will pledge to devoutly pray this Act of Reparation To The Blessed Virgin, the Litany of The Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Short Exorcism Prayer to St. Michael, not only will we be able to "send" to God close to 100,000 devoutly said prayers of reparation...

Sounds like you're playing the lottery, here. One person praying, sure, fine. But one hundred thousand people praying, why, your adversaries will be SURE to change!

Yeah, that's not how anything works.

...I'll then send a list of our thousands of pledges to Mr. Mark Wilson, manager of the host venue Bourbon Orleans Hotel, asking him not to host HexFest. And our acts of reparation will be a powerful and real deterrent to the evil spirits sure to be summoned at 'HexFest.'

That's assuming they're summoning evil spirits. Oh wait, you do believe that, even though it's stupid.

And I'll also send them to the two organizers and hosts, Brian Cain and Christian Day. Cain "is a teacher, psychic, medium and a New Orleans Warlock." "He is a devotee of several forms of British Traditional Witchcraft and is a High Priest of the Alexandrian Tradition." Day is "a modern-day Warlock" and he is a "practitioner of the ancient arts of Witchcraft."

Okay, and?

• Act of Reparation To Our Lady
• Followed by Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary

And the "Short Exorcism Prayer to St. Michael" Yet another iteration of the urging to pray these three prayers.

FURTHER INSULT OFFERED TO GOD
The Hex Fest is being hosted at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel. Built in 1817 as the Orleans Ballroom, in 1881 the Sisters of the Holy Family, founded by Venerable Henriette Delille and two friends, and "the oldest female-led African-American Catholic order of nuns in the United States", purchased the property and for the next 83 years ran it as an orphanage, medical ward, school, and convent by, of, and especially for African-Americans.

And that's a good thing. But for some reason the Sisters sold the property off, either on their own or by edict handed down from the Roman Catholic Church (because from time to time, they do that). At that point, neither the Sisters or the church had any say in who bought the property.

Several of the rooms still bear the names of saints. For example:

• Saint Mary Salon
• Saint Joseph Salon
• Saint Anne Cottage

Sounds like a lovely naming schemes. Glad the hotel kept it.

So May I Count On You To Console Our Lady
For This Weekend Of Witchery
By Making A Powerful
Act of ReparationL

And here we go again. And yep, again, all in bold.

• Followed by Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• And the "Short Exorcism Prayer to St. Michael"

A Sovereign Contempt For The Demon
The Saints and spiritual authors also encourage a sovereign contempt for the demon.

Let us hear what Saint Therese says:

"It is very often that these damned spirits come to torment me; but they inspire very little fear in me, because I know them well and they cannot even stir without God's permission… This should be well known by all: every time we show our contempt for the demons, they lose their strength and the soul acquires more predominance upon them… To see themselves despised by weaker beings is, in fact, a severe humiliation for these arrogant beings. Well, as we said before, humbly supported by God, we have the right and the obligation of showing our contempt: if God is with us, who will be against us? They can bark, but they cannot bite, unless in the cases that - by imprudence, or pride - we place ourselves in their power".

Sure, if you believe there are evil demons, great, stand against them. Go for it. But don't automatically assume that anyone who's not Catholic is evil and summoning demons.

Importantly, we must not confuse this contempt for the demon with the vain pretension that we, by ourselves, have any power over the fallen Angels.

Wait, all these urgings to pray and turn the tide of evil in lo, these fallen states, and now you say there's nothing you can do about evil in the world? What?

• Act of Reparation To Our Lady
• Followed by Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• And the "Short Exorcism Prayer to St. Michael"

So much repetition.

"By our nature, we have no power whatsoever over them; on the contrary, by their superior nature, they are far more powerful than us. Therefore, the foundation of this healthy contempt for the infernal enemies must not be based on a rash disregard of danger.

"Rather, it must be supported by a most sincere humility and true confidence in the Creator and in the Most Holy Virgin."

Oh, right, it's not us as individuals, it's not OUR own strengths held up against evil, it's all God moving through us. I forgot that precept of the crazy, that if we do bad, it's on us, but if we do good, we had no part in it, it was just God all along.

"If these cares are taken, it is befitting to do what the great Saint Therese indicates with such propriety.

"Above all, we should make every effort to live a life of serious and sincere piety, without superstition or sentimentality. This will certainly maintain the demon at a distance, as much as that is possible."
(A Sovereign Contempt For The Demon by Luis Solimeo, from his book Angels and Demons.)

I think that's Luiz, not Luis, but I couldn't actually track the book down to verify the quote. I did track down this, however, which spells Solimeo's name the same way, and does seem to be the same passage quoted above? For what that's worth. maybe it wasn't a book, maybe it was a named essay.

So May I Count On You To Console Our Lady
For This Weekend Of Witchery
By Making A Powerful
Act of ReparationL

• Followed by Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• And the "Short Exorcism Prayer to St. Michael"

God love you!And Mary be with you.

Yeah, sure. Really, you'd be better off just brewing a cuppa, laying down with a cold cloth on your forehead, and just breathe for a week or so. Nothing is going to light on fire because you're not hyperventilating every five minutes. Let it go.