Should Catholics Celebrate Halloween?
By Scott P. Richert,
About.com Guide
A Controversial Holiday:
Every year, a debate rages among Catholics and other
Christians: Is Halloween a satanic holiday or merely a secular one? Should
Catholic children dress up like ghosts and goblins? Is it good for children to
be scared? Lost in the debate is the history of Halloween, which, far from
being a pagan religious event, is actually a Christian celebration that's
almost 1,300 years old.
The Christian Origins of Halloween:
"Halloween" is a name that means nothing by
itself. It is a contraction of "All Hallows Eve," and it designates
the vigil of All Hallows Day, more commonly known today as All Saints Day.
("Hallow," as a noun, is an old English word for saint. As a verb, it
means to make something holy or to honor it as holy.) All Saints Day, November
1, is a Holy Day of Obligation, and both the feast and the vigil have been
celebrated since the early eighth century, when they were instituted by Pope
Gregory III in Rome. (A century later, they were extended to the Church at
large by Pope Gregory IV.)
The Pagan Origins of Halloween:
Despite concerns among some Catholics and other Christians
in recent years about the "pagan origins" of Halloween, there really
are none. The first attempts to show some connection between the vigil of All
Saints and the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain came over a thousand years
after All Saints Day became a universal feast, and there's no evidence
whatsoever that Gregory III or Gregory IV was even aware of Samhain.
In Celtic peasant culture, however, elements of the harvest
festival survived, even among Christians, just as the Christmas tree owes its
origins to pre-Christian Germanic traditions without being a pagan ritual.
Combining the Pagan and the Christian:
The Celtic elements included lighting bonfires, carving
turnips (and, in America, pumpkins), and going from house to house, collecting
treats, as carolers do at Christmas. But the "occult" aspects of
Halloween—ghosts and demons—actually have their roots in Catholic belief.
Christians believed that, at certain times of the year (Christmas is another),
the veil separating earth from Purgatory, heaven, and even hell becomes more
thin, and the souls in Purgatory (ghosts) and demons can be more readily seen.
Thus the tradition of Halloween costumes owes as much, if not more, to Christian
belief as to Celtic tradition.
The (First) Anti-Catholic Attack on Halloween:
The current attacks on Halloween aren't the first. In
post-Reformation England, All Saints Day and its vigil were suppressed, and the
Celtic peasant customs associated with Halloween were outlawed. Christmas and
the traditions surrounding it were similarly attacked, and the Puritan
Parliament banned Christmas outright in 1647. In America, Puritans outlawed the
celebration of both Christmas and Halloween, which were revived largely by
German Catholic (in the case of Christmas) and Irish Catholic (in the case of
Halloween) immigrants in the 19th century.
The Commercialization of Halloween:
Continued opposition to Halloween was largely an expression
of anti-Catholicism (as well as anti-Irish prejudice). But by the early 20th
century, Halloween, like Christmas, was becoming highly commercialized.
Pre-made costumes, decorations, and special candy all became widely available,
and the Christian origins of the holiday were downplayed.
The rise of horror films, and especially the slasher films
of the late 70's and 80's, contributed to Halloween's bad reputation, as did
the claims of putative Satanists and Wiccans, who created a mythology in which
Halloween had been their festival, co-opted later by Christians.
The (Second) Anti-Catholic Attack on Halloween:
A new backlash against Halloween by non-Catholic Christians
began in the 1980's, in part because of claims that Halloween was the
"Devil's Night"; in part because of urban legends about poisons and
razor blades in Halloween candy; and in part because of an explicit opposition
to Catholicism. Jack Chick, a rabidly anti-Catholic fundamentalist who
distributes Bible tracts in the form of small comic books, helped lead the
charge. (For more on Chick's rabid anti-Catholicism and his attack on
Halloween, see Halloween, Jack Chick, and Anti-Catholicism.)
By the late 1990's, many Catholic parents, unaware of the
anti-Catholic origins of the attack on Halloween, had begun to question
Halloween as well, and alternative celebrations became popular.
Alternatives to Halloween Activities:
 |
| Boy as a Saintly Bishop |
Ironically, one of the most popular Christian alternatives
to celebrating Halloween is a secular "Harvest Festival," which has
more in common with the Celtic Samhain than it does with the Catholic All
Saints Day. There's nothing wrong with celebrating the harvest, but there's no
need to strip such a celebration of connections with the Christian liturgical
calendar.
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| Child dressed as Our Lady of Gaudalupe |
Another popular Catholic alternative is an All Saints Party,
usually held on Halloween and featuring costumes (of saints rather than ghouls)
and candy. At best, though, this is an attempt to Christianize an already
Christian holiday.
Safety Concerns and the Fear Factor:
Parents are in the best position to decide whether their
children can participate safely in Halloween activities, and, in today's world,
it's understandable that many choose to err on the side of caution. One concern
that's often overblown, however, is the effect that fright might have on
children. Some children, of course, are very sensitive, but most love scaring
others and being scared themselves (within limits, of course). Any parent knows
that the "Boo!" is usually followed by laughter, not only from the
child doing the scaring, but from the one being scared. Halloween provides a
structured environment for fear.
Making Your Decision:
In the end, the choice is yours to make as a parent….
explain the Christian origins of Halloween to your children. Before you send
them off trick-or-treating, recite together the Prayer to Saint Michael the
Archangel, and explain that, as Catholics, we believe in the reality of evil.
Tie the vigil explicitly to the Feast of All Saints, and explain to your
children why we celebrate that feast, so that they won't view All Saints Day as
"the boring day when we have to go to church before we can eat some more
candy."
Let's reclaim Halloween for Christians, by returning to its
roots in the Catholic Church!
More on Halloween
Halloween: A Catholic
View http://catholicism.about.com/b/2007/10/18/halloween-a-catholic-view.htm
Is Halloween
Anti-Christian? http://catholicism.about.com/b/2008/10/17/reader-question-is-halloween-anti-christian.htm
Celebrating
Halloween http://catholicism.about.com/b/2008/10/31/celebrating-halloween.htm
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