What to Do About Halloween?
From: Fr Moderator:
The question often arises at this time of year about the celebration of
Halloween by Catholics. Is it, for instance, "pagan" to dress up and
go about as ghosts and goblins? The question often comes up because many modern
Christians (mostly non-Catholic ones) believe Halloween has something to do
with worshipping the devil and participating in witchcraft. The truth is, the
origins of Halloween are rooted deeply in the theology and popular customs of
Catholics.
It is a revision of actual history to say that our modern celebration of
Halloween has origins in Druid customs. It is true that the ancient Celts
celebrated a major feast (the Celtic New Year) on October 31st, but the fact is
that they celebrated a festival on the last day of almost every month.
First of all, the celebration of Halloween, i.e., people dressing up in
costumes, going to parties, and "begging" for candy, is not
un-Catholic. Halloween falls on October 31st because the Feast of All Saints or
"All Hallows" falls on November 1st. The feast in honor of all the
Saints used to be celebrated on May 13th, but Pope Gregory III, in 731, moved
it to November 1st, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St Peter's in Rome. This
feast spread throughout the world.
In 998, St Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in France, added a
celebration on November 2nd. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the
faithful departed. Therefore, the Church had a feast of the Saints and those in
Purgatory.
It was the Irish Catholics who came up with the idea to remember somehow
those souls who did not live by the Faith in this life. It became customary for
these Irish to bang on pots and pans on All Hallow's Eve to let the damned know
that they were not forgotten. In Ireland, then, all the dead came to be
remembered. This, however, is still not exactly like our celebration of
Halloween. On Halloween we also dress up in costumes.
This practice arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. During the
horrible bubonic plague, the Black Death, Europe lost half of her population.
Artists depicted this on walls to remind us of our own mortality. These
pictures and representations are known as the "Dance of Death" or
"Dance Macabre." These figures were commonly painted on cemetery
walls and showed the devil leading a daisy chain of people into the tomb.
Sometimes the dance was re-enacted on All Souls' Day as a living tableau, with
people dressed up as the dead. But the French dressed up on All Souls, not
Halloween, and the Irish, who celebrated Halloween, did not dress up.
The two were brought together in the colonies of North America during the
18th century, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. Thus the two
celebrations became mingled, and we began dressing up on Halloween. It is, as
we can see, a very "American" holiday, but Catholic as well.
"Trick-or-Treating" is a very odd addition to Halloween. It is the
most American aspect of the holiday, and is the (unwilling) contribution of
English Catholics.
Guy Fawkes Day became a great celebration against Catholics in England. It
celebrated the day the plot to blow up Parliament and King James I was
discovered. This was on November 5, 1605. Guy Fawkes was the rather reckless
man guarding the gunpowder. He was arrested and hanged. During these times of
persecution of the Catholic Church, bands of revelers would wear masks and
visit Catholics in the night demanding they be given cakes and beer.
Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English
settlers. Old King James had long been forgotten, but
"Trick-or-Treating" was too much fun to give up. Eventually, it moved
to the Irish/French Catholic masquerade. This practice of
"Trick-or-Treating" was simply moved to coincide with the Catholic
celebration involving dressing up. Also, among he Druids, candy was used to
welcome the good spirits, and masks (jack o'lanterns) were used to scare away
the evil spirits.
Halloween can still serve the purpose of reminding us about Hell and how to
avoid it. Halloween is also a day to prepare us to remember those who have gone
before us in Faith, those already in Heaven and those still suffering in
Purgatory. The next time someone claims Halloween is a cruel trick to lure our
children into devil worship, I suggest you tell them the real origin of
Halloween and let them know about its Catholic roots and significance. (By Fr
Scott Archer)
Catholic parents who are not comfortable with the worst secular aspects of
Halloween can avail themselves of alternative activities on that day: family
prayer and fasting for the Vigil of All Saints Day, visitations of houses in
the garments of non-devilish personae, the reading aloud of stories of the
Saints or of seasonal literature such as Edgar Allen Poe's "The Masque of
the Red Death" and Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow", and the playing of seasonal music such as Saint-Saens' "Danse
Macabre", Modest Moussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" and Sergei
Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead."
A word of caution, however. The Church has always condemned as sins against
the First Commandment, and thus cautioned her children to stay far away from:
astrology, charms, divination, fortune-telling, magic, the ouija boards,
sorcery, spells, witchcraft, and other occult activities, even if they are
treated in a trivial or jesting fashion.
St Thomas
Aquinas says that it is not permitted to Christians even to dabble in such
things: "Man has not been entrusted with power over the demons to employ
them to whatsoever purpose he will. On the contrary, it is appointed that he
should wage war against the demons. Hence, in no way is it lawful for man to
make use of the demons' help by compacts -- either tacit or express" (II-
II, Q96, Art. 3).
We remember too the enjoinder of the Prayer to St Michael concerning Satanam aliosque
spiritus malignos qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo [Satan
and the other evil spirits who roam in the world for the ruin of souls]. As in
all things, parents must be sure to teach their children the proper balance in
such matters, erring neither on the side of defect or excess.
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