Amid Halloween Spells, Catholics in Salem are fighting a battle for souls National Catholic Register

On an unseasonably warm October afternoon in Witch City, America’s unofficial Halloween capital, thousands of people walk past a lay Catholic street preacher. Some wear tight black skeleton costumes, others wear vampire hoods and makeup, and some look like demons.

Most are revelers celebrating Halloween a little early. But others have intense expressions on their faces, as if it were game day.

The preacher, Anthony Correnti, 35, is not in costume. Instead, he’s wearing a black T-shirt that says “Need Prayer?” He stands on a granite wall on Essex Street with a microphone in his right hand. Near the two-and-a-half-foot-tall black Sony speaker is a plaque with the image of God’s Merciful Jesus and the magical inscription “He is Risen.” Below that is another sign, also written in magical red and blue marker: “The Miracles of Jesus.” A loudspeaker plays contemporary worship music while Correnti speaks into a microphone.

“I can’t save you, but Jesus can save you. I cannot give you new life, but today Jesus has new life for you. Today Jesus wants to fill you with God’s power and God’s love. And all you have to do is say, ‘Yes,'” Correnti says with a slight rasp and a discreet Boston accent that extends to the vowel “o” in “Gawwd” (his pronunciation of God).

“See why we’re here? Because if you’re in Salem, you know there’s more. You know that there is a supernatural realm, that there is a King of this supernatural realm,” Correnti said.

Salem, of course, is the site of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, which city officials have heavily promoted to tourists over the past few decades. Today, in October, this city of over 40,000 people is visited by over a million people.

Correnti is one of several thousand Catholics in Salem, which is now a mecca for occultism. Since about the early 1970s, self-proclaimed witches and Satanists have been coming to Salem and staying there. Dozens of stores serve them. Many sell witch accessories. Some even sell a kit aimed at de-Catholicism, including renunciation of baptism.

So what is it like to be a practicing Catholic in Salem, where less than a mile away there is an official witch town downtown and a Satanic temple in a former funeral home, and self-proclaimed occultists seek converts year-round?

Father Robert Murray, pastor of the downtown parish cooperating with Mary, Queen of the Apostles, sees the City of Witches as both a symbol and a challenge.

“Living as a Catholic in Salem all this time allows you to see how far society has moved away from Christianity,” said the Rev. Murray to the Register, “and what chance we have to bring Jesus to others.”

Open Church

Father Murray’s church is about a four-minute walk from Correnti’s perch. It is a red brick building with a soaring tower built in 1895, called the Immaculate Conception.

When he became a pastor in 2017, he knew what he was getting into.

“When I came here, I was told there were more registered witches than registered Catholics,” he said.

From Hawthorne Boulevard, passersby can see through the church’s open doors a large, illuminated painting depicting Mary above the altar as she is described in the Book of Revelation (“a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”). The monstrance on the altar contains an illuminated Host, which, according to Catholics, is the Eucharistic Body of Jesus Christ.

For about seven years, the parish has kept the church open in the afternoons and evenings on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in October and on weekdays as Halloween approaches.

In October 2023, the church was visited by about 5,000 people, said Peter Gordon, 55, a parishioner and patent attorney who helps organize greetings at the church. This year the numbers are higher: by October 27, 6,300 people had visited.

In the middle of the church there is a book in which prayers can be written. Intentions included aunt and grandmother having cancer; uncle with ALS; family problems; depression; Bow.

Sometimes the church replaces planned destinations.

“There are people who take a bus tour and Salem is not what they expect,” Gordon said. “There was a woman here who came by bus and literally spent the entire afternoon here because she didn’t want to be there.”

“This is something we have said every time the church has been open: There is at least one person it is open to,” Gordon said.

There are people dressed as witches, vampires and devils.

“And that part is a little disturbing,” Father Murray said. “But we have an answer to that. We open the doors of our church. Our Catholic response is that we invite people to come and find peace, sit down and rest. We expose the Holy Eucharist and have the opportunity to pray with people, pray for them, anoint them, hear their confessions and be a source of comfort and hope in the midst of the noise outside.

Hail Mary

For most people arriving, downtown Salem in October resembles a giant outdoor costume party. Musicians, street performers, street vendors, pointy hats and colorful costumes give the clogged streets a carnival atmosphere.

When Correnti preaches on Essex Street, he tries to keep his message simple, engaging and positive. He does not criticize passers-by or warn them, but praises their clothes and invites them.

“God is speaking to you today. You could have come here to meet witches, but God has intercepted you and wants to give you Jesus. He wants to give you his only Son. He wants to do a miracle for you today,” Correnti said.

In the afternoon, he took a break from preaching to talk to the Register.

He said he was raised as a church-going Catholic in Salem and attended St. John’s Prep in nearby Danvers, but he was never exposed to the faith as a child. As a college student at Arizona State, he spent most of his time chasing girls, partying, and smoking marijuana.

However, as a young adult, he knew something was missing. In July 2019, a friend invited him to a conference at a Catholic church in Boston, near the North Shore, where he experienced an immediate conversion. He started going to Holy Mass. two or three times a day and once a day for confession, and he also began to fast for a long time. He began street preaching and later became co-host of Father Tom DiLorenzo’s Catholic radio show in Boston, In season and out of season.

Correnti told the Register that he works part-time as a waiter at an Italian restaurant on Boston’s North Side, but spends most of his time in ministry.

On Saturday, from time to time someone would come and thank us for preaching the Gospel or give us a fist bump.

This is what it looked like when a man in a grotesque, head-to-toe green costume with wings, horns, a tail, and platform shoes approached from the left and extended his left fist. As Correnti extended his right fist to punch himself, the costumed man opened his hand and extended his fingers as if casting a spell, then lowered his hand and raised it again, showing Correnti his middle finger from about six inches away. before doubled over and giggling as he walked.

Correnti never missed a beat.

“My friend,” he said as the man held out his hand for the first time.

And right after the middle finger: “But I love you. You are still on my prayer list.”

In a telephone conversation last week, Correnti said he constantly meets with Satanists.

“When they say, ‘Hello, Satan.’ I say, ‘Hail Mary,'” he said.

If this sounds like a cliché, it isn’t.

Minutes after the man in the green suit gave him the finger, a woman in black tight pants, a black shirt with an exposed midriff and black shoes approached Correnti and said she had been going to Catholic school for 10 years.

“I ended up not getting confirmed and leaving school,” she said.

“God sent you here today,” Correnti replied.

“No, I’m a Satanist,” she replied. “That’s why I came here – especially for Satan.”

They talked for about 11 minutes. The woman, who identified herself as “almost 30,” had purple hair, a black and white scarf around her shoulders and glasses on top of her head.

She analyzed a litany of allegations against the Catholic Church: What about priests who commit sexual abuse by priests? How could Mary conceive Jesus? What were Adam and Eve punished for? Why does everyone else feel their sin? Why did my mother drink herself to death? Why did my client commit suicide?

Then: “What do you think about abortion?” – she said at one point, referring to the fetus as “just a parasite.”

The woman crossed her arms as Correnti responded to some of her concerns.

He invited her to church.

“The last time I was in church it was really hot. “I felt like I was on fire,” she said.

She criticized Correnti for preaching to people in a public place “where everyone is having a good time and may not believe in Jesus… when everyone is trying to celebrate Halloween and ghosts and cool stuff like… Satan.”

“Come on, winning team. Satan has been defeated,” Correnti said.

“I am ON winning team,” she said.

“Oh, Satan lost on the cross,” Correnti said.

“I love Satan so much,” she said.

“He doesn’t love you,” Correnti said.

At the end of the conversation, she leaned toward the cell phone held by the reporter and said, “Goodbye, live,” thinking (mistakenly) that the call was being broadcast live, and walked away, saying, “Hello, Satan.”

Correnti replied: “Hail Mary.”