About 30 members of the Kansas City-area Satanic Grotto, led by its president, Michael Stewart, rallied outside the Statehouse for the separation of church and state.
Gov. Laura Kelly temporarily banned protests inside, just for Friday, weeks after Stewart’s group scheduled its indoor ceremony.
The two groups yelled at each other while the Christians also sang and called on Grotto members to accept Jesus.
The state’s Catholic Bishops called what the group planned “a despicable act of anti-Catholic bigotry” mocking the Catholic Mass.
Michael Stewart, the President of the Kansas City-area Satanic Grotto, speaks with reporters as the group's rally gets started outside the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas, on Friday, March 28, 2025.
The woman, Karla Delgado, said she came to the Statehouse with her three youngest children to deliver a petition protesting the Black Mass to Kelly’s office.
Delgado said she approached Stewart because he was violating the governor’s order and Highway Patrol troopers weren’t immediately arresting him. »