August 15 is a holy day in the Catholic calendar, the Feast of the Assumption. Recently, Satanists in Oklahoma City chose this day to offend Catholics by holding a “Black Mass” that evening, one that included the desecration of a statue of the Virgin Mary.

This was not the first time that a Satanic ceremony was held in Oklahoma City. A registered sex offender, Adam Daniels, pulled a similar stunt two years ago; he  also lead the one last month.

Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley handled the 2014 event responsibly; he did so again last month. He asked the faithful not to give Daniels the media platform he was seeking; rather, the archbishop encouraged Catholics to attend a Unity Prayer Service and Walk.

Archbishop Coakley asked why local officials were allowing this “abhorrent act” to take place. The Catholic League joined him in that quest.

Please spare us talk about freedom of speech. The First Amendment is not an end—it is a means to an end. But we have forgotten what the Founders envisioned. Speech must be free, they said, if the public is to choose how best to govern society. In other words, free speech meant political discourse, without which the good society could not be crafted. Free speech was defended because it served a noble end.

There is nothing noble about hate speech, and this includes intentionally insulting people of faith. That this offensive exercise happened in an arena funded by the public, which includes many Catholics, made this “Black Mass” all the more astounding.

The mayor and city council need to answer this question: What liberty was Daniels advancing, and why did it have to be sponsored by the public?

James Kenney was elected mayor of Philadelphia. He seems to think that gives him the authority, or qualifications, to run the Catholic Church in his city. It does not.

Recently, Kenney ripped Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput as “not Christian.” The archbishop’s offense? He issued pastoral guidelines reiterating Catholic teaching on marriage, family, and reception of the Eucharist. There was nothing new in Chaput’s document. It merely called—as the Church always has—for clergy to provide pastoral care for those living in relationships outside its teachings, while upholding the integrity of the sacraments.  “Anything less,” Chaput correctly observed, “misleads people about the nature of the Eucharist and the Church.”

Kenney disagreed. Fine. But it is an abuse of his office to use his platform as mayor to publicly intrude on what is clearly an internal Church matter. And it is far from the first time he has used his position as a government official to attack the Catholic Church.

In what Philadelphia Magazine termed “Jim Kenney’s Long War with the Archdiocese,” he has criticized as “cowardly men” archdiocesan officials who determined that a woman in a homosexual marriage could no longer teach religion in a Catholic school. Prior to Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia last September, Kenney tweeted, “The Arch don’t (sic) care about people. It’s about image and money. Pope Francis needs to kick some ass here!” And he criticized the archdiocese for closing 49 Catholic schools—even though in recent years he has become a vocal opponent of school vouchers, abandoning his past support of a voucher program that may have helped keep those schools open.

Kenney labeled Archbishop Chaput un-Christian for upholding Catholic teaching. The mayor is demonstrably un-American in misusing his public office to conduct his personal war on the Catholic Church.