Marianists used a school chapel for the promotion of the new season of a Netflix series that He announced like this: “Set in Nevermore where you can visit the best of the Academy: torture rooms, diabolical dolls, Wednesday’s room and a vacuum that consumes the soul.”
Over three days, the neo -Gothic style chapel located on the second floor of the Our Lady of Pilar School in Madrid, dedicated to the founder of the company of María, Blessed Guillermo José Chaminade, served as a stage for an advertising event of the second season of the series dedicated to Wednesday (Wednesday or Merlina in other countries), the female child character of the Adams family.
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On the ticket sales website Eventbrite se especifica That the experience, lasting approximately one hour, was “recommended for over 12 years”, warning that children under 18 had to “be accompanied by a duly identified adult.”
According to the website specialized in advertising MarketingDirecto.com“The experience includes a walk through the Wednesday and Enid room, a visit to the new torture and herbology rooms, the dark Addams cemetery and a meeting with dolls arrived from the beyond.” This publication, Through Tik Tok showed images of the transformation of the school and, in particular, of the chapel.
This non -liturgical activity was extended over three days, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week and the controversy has been answered with a statement published Tuesday.
Marianists: “Nothing diabolic or satanic in the chapel”
The address of the school ensures that “the Chaminade chapel room had been carefully prepared for the exhibition. For this, the Blessed Sacrament had previously moved to another worthy and safe place.”
In addition, the text continues, “the altar area and the presbytery was treated with the utmost respect, isolating it from the place accessed by the people who participated in the event.”
Against the texts that announced the experience, the school denies “flatly that there has been anything diabolical or satanic in the chapel” and emphasizes that “the scenery did not entail any symbol or offensive ritual.”
It is admitted instead that “it is a fiction series, with Gothic setting, which mixes terror and comedy.”
However, from school they express their regret: “we feel that, despite all the measures taken, this situation has been able to cause scandal and discomfort in some people” and insists that “the entire exhibition has been taken with total normality, being very respectful of the center’s facilities.”
Financial compensation
ACI Press has consulted the Communication Directorate of the Company of María if the school had received some kind of financial compensation for the use of the enclosure, but has refused to offer this information.
“Yesterday’s statement contains all the information that the school will transfer about this topic. In the case of having to transfer new information, it will be done in the same way, first of all, to the families of the center,” they said.
Non -liturgical use protocol in the Archdiocese of Madrid
Beyond the content of the experience allowed in the Chaminade chapel, the school also recognizes in the statement that it had not informed the archbishopric of the non -liturgical use of the chapel “as indicated by its protocols.”
“We did not know this procedure and thank the archbishopric to have sent us and clarify the doubts.”
The Archdiocese of Madrid has at least 2002 a Instruction on some extraliturgical uses of churches in which it is established in the case of cultural, institutional, academic and literary acts that “in exceptional cases, licensed by the ordinary, the head of the Church can grant authorization to celebrate this type of acts, when due to the circumstances and its content directly favor the exercise and promotion of piety and religion, the only criterion that legitimizes the occasional and exceptional extraliturgical use of the sacred places”.
In the case of advertising and filming filming of films, the Archbishopric of Madrid demands a prior formal authorization for which “two copies of the technical and literary script of the filming and the dates in which it is intended to be carried out” must be presented.
The protocol, established being Archbishop of Madrid Cardinal Antonio María Rouco, concludes that “the liturgical use of the churches, dedicated exclusively to the exercise and promotion of wors manifesting ‘as a sacrament, that is, sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of the unity of all the human race’ ”.
Nicolás de Cárdenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish and journalist’s husband and father with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specialized in socio -political and religious information. I have worked more than 10 years in defense of human rights and I have accreditations in journalism and comprehensive communication. Since July 2022, I am a correspondent for ACI Press and Ewtn News in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.