Do Catholics believe in vampires?

[emom]

Many of my friends ask why there are so many movies that have Catholics fighting vampires with their faith like the cross and holy water. Why has this become so popular and is there any truth to it?

 

[Sir_Knight]

With all due respect, I don’t think any rational person believes in vampires.

And as far as the Myth goes, it isn’t a cross & holy water that hurts vampires but religious items that the person believes in. For example, if a Jew were to wave a cross around, it would have no effect on the vampire but if he used the Star of David, then it would – it has to be a religious item that the user believes in.

 

[thistle]

Sir Knight:

With all due respect, I don’t think any rational person believes in vampires.

I totally agree with you.

 

[StCsDavid]

Catholics have many more sacramentals (cross, holy water, holy oil, rosary) to use in defending themselves…not that I believe in vampires, but I do believe there are very confused people out there who think they are vampires.

Besides how would a Hollywood director direct an actor playing a Protestant? “Okay, when Dracula comes at you, be sure to ask him if he’s accepted Christ as his lord and personal savior.”

 

[Reformed_Rob]

What if someone were possessed by a demon, and that demonic possession manifested itself as the person being a vampire?

I’m just bringing that up to discuss. I think there’s been a thread or 2 on this before.

 

[Phaedrus]

StCsDavid:

Besides how would a Hollywood director direct an actor playing a Protestant? “Okay, when Dracula comes at you, be sure to ask him if he’s accepted Christ as his lord and personal savior.”

That’s funny! I suppose he could whip out a “Four Spiritual Laws” tract and whack him with it.

Under the Mercy,
Phaedrus

 

[Pillar_of_Cloud]

StCsDavid:

Catholics have many more sacramentals (cross, holy water, holy oil, rosary) to use in defending themselves…not that I believe in vampires, but I do believe there are very confused people out there who think they are vampires.

Besides how would a Hollywood director direct an actor playing a Protestant? “Okay, when Dracula comes at you, be sure to ask him if he’s accepted Christ as his lord and personal savior.”

With due respect to our Protestant brethren, I’d think they’d be portrayed as calling on the name of Jesus only, maybe thrusting out and/or lifting up their hands as they invoked HIs name, but they wouldn’t be caught dead weilding a cruxifix or anything.

On a side note, I think that’d make for an interesting movie–a Catholic and Protestant vampire hunter fighting side by side or in competition, but that is totally off-topic…

 

[Reformed_Rob]

Pillar of Cloud:

With due respect to our Protestant brethren, I’d think they’d be portrayed as calling on the name of Jesus only, maybe thrusting out and/or lifting up their hands as they invoked HIs name, but they wouldn’t be caught dead weilding a cruxifix or anything.

On a side note, I think that’d make for an interesting movie–a Catholic and Protestant vampire hunter fighting side by side or in competition, but that is totally off-topic…

I was thinking about that from Phaedrus’ post. Maybe “we” or the Protestant vampire fighter would have a convenient pocket new testament. And some modern “Protestants” if you will, do have cross neclaces and such. I suppose cruxifices too.

However, if I was a serious vampire hunter, I’d have a few wooden stakes, and some of those “light emitting bullets” from the Blade movie.

Hmmm… I wonder, would a wooden arrow work, like a wooden stake, as long as it pierced the heart and stuck in the vampire?

 

[RobNY]

Reformed Rob:

Well, as Bram Stoker obviously says in Dracula, only crucifixes (not crosses) and holy water drive away vampires. I think the garlic too is just another concession to those Roman Catholics, because those Italians just can’t get enough of the stuff!

[As a side note, when I read *Dracula for the first time over the summer, I had to chuckle at how Stoker consistently promotes Catholicism, see also with the use of the Host to repel undead, or how the Host burns a mark on Mina Harker’s head after the Count does that blood thing with her.]

Hmmm… I wonder, would a wooden arrow work, like a wooden stake, as long as it pierced the heart and stuck in the vampire?

Are we going by the Dracula or Buffy the Vampire Slayer rules here?

 

[barsapp]

Sir Knight:

With all due respect, I don’t think any rational person believes in vampires.

vampirism as a type of satanism. you fight the unholiness, with the holy arms of the faith. compare with an exorcism.

 

[Reformed_Rob]

Rob,

I haven’t read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. So I’m perhaps not up on the specifics.

Don’t worry though, if I were to be called to be a vampire slayer, I’d read up on the tactics and equipment to use.

Not that I think that’s going to ever happen (famous last words).

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

RobNY:

Reformed Rob:

Well, as Bram Stoker obviously says in Dracula, only crucifixes (not crosses) and holy water drive away vampires. I think the garlic too is just another concession to those Roman Catholics, because those Italians just can’t get enough of the stuff!

[As a side note, when I read *Dracula

for the first time over the summer, I had to chuckle at how Stoker consistently promotes Catholicism, see also with the use of the Host to repel undead, or how the Host burns a mark on Mina Harker’s head after the Count does that blood thing with her.]

Are we going by the Dracula or Buffy the Vampire Slayer rules here? ## Having read and thought about it, I’m struck by how the Count is a sort of Christ-in-reverse:

• He sucks blood out of bodies of the living - Jesus shed His for the living who were dead in sin
• He is filled with hate - Jesus is full of Love, and is Love
• He spreads death & something is neither death nor life - Jesus gives eternal Life, Life in all its fullness
• He is overcome by the Cross - Jesus overcame by the Cross

(No, I do not think the book is an allegory - I think that vampires may have been conceived of as inversion of Christ, given that this vampire has that character.)

My impression is that Catholic things tend to be used because they are found to work, not because the user has any faith in the efficacy of what they represent: so that crucifixes are used because they are cruciform, which is why they work; not because they are explicitly Christian.

That idea is fetishistic, not Catholic: the object is used because mana, sacred power, is inherent in it as the object it is, not because it is Christian - if a Hindu object had worked against Dracula, I suspect it would have been used. The cross is a very ancient symbol, and it seems reasonable to think of its shape as being thought of as inherently magical - alien as that is to a Catholic understanding of the Cross, in which it is made explicit that crucifixes have no inherent mana whatever, but depend for their efficacy on how they are used by the Christian. The notion that sacred objects are sacred of themselves is pre-Christian. Not Christian.

That is in the story, of course; I’ve no idea what Stoker’s religious notions were: authors are not their characters. ##

 

[Sub-Zero]

Sir Knight:

With all due respect, I don’t think any rational person believes in vampires.

And as far as the Myth goes, it isn’t a cross & holy water that hurts vampires but religious items that the person believes in. For example, if a Jew were to wave a cross around, it would have no effect on the vampire but if he used the Star of David, then it would – it has to be a religious item that the user believes in.

That reminded of Mel Brooks’ character using the Star of David on a vampire in Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

Vampires, anyone here seen John Carpenter’s Vampires with James Woods as a hunter hired by the Vatican? An interesting story, I read the book it’s based on by John Steakley. It’s a lot better, Jack Crow actually has dinner with the Pope in the beginning.

I’d like to do that as a profession. But, they’re not real or are they?

Pillar of Clowd, I actually had an idea for a comic book on a Catholic Priest and a Protestant pastor working together to get rid of vampires in their town.

Has anyone here seen Dracula 2000 and it’s sequels? It had Dracula be Judas actually, a different twist on the story.

Van Helsing also had Buddihst, Christians, Jews and Muslims working together to stop evil.

 

[nucatholic]

I’m pretty sure my neighbor is a vampire…one of these days I might hide in the bushes in front of out apartment complex and throw some holy water on her before she gets in her car. Do you think she would mind?

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

emom:

Many of my friends ask why there are so many movies that have Catholics fighting vampires with their faith like the cross and holy water. Why has this become so popular and is there any truth to it?

There’s some historical truth to vampires, but not in the modern portrayal of Hollywood. Bram Stoker thought up what most people now days think of as ‘vampires’.

If you want the historical truths behind Count Dracula, go here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_III_Dracula & here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Dracula.

Van Helsing epitomizes this struggle because he is doctor who used what were, at the time, extremely modern technologies like blood transfusions; but he is not so modern as to eschew the idea that a demonic being could be causing Lucy’s illness, thus he spreads garlic around the sashes and doors of her room and makes her wear a garlic necklace. After Lucy’s death, he receives an indulgence from a Catholic cleric to use the Eucharist (held by the Church to be transubstantiated into the body and blood of Jesus Christ) in his fight against Dracula. In trying to bridge the rational/supersticious conflict within the story, he cites then-new sciences, such as hypnotism, that were only recently considered magical. He also quotes (without attribution) the American philosopher William James, whose writings on the power of belief become the only way to deal with this conflict.

 

[Sir_Knight]

Sub-Zero:

Vampires, anyone here seen John Carpenter’s Vampires with James Woods as a hunter hired by the Vatican?

Great movie! Didn’t like the parts where they altered some of the traditional vampire folklore but over-all, it was very good.

barsapp:

vampirism as a type of satanism. you fight the unholiness, with the holy arms of the faith. compare with an exorcism.

I have no idea what you said.

RobNY:

as Bram Stoker obviously says in Dracula, only crucifixes (not crosses) and holy water drive away vampires.

What above when Dracula goes after Kitty and she grabs the crucifix off the table and holds it up to ward him off, First he backs off expecting something horrible to happen but then he sees that nothing is happening to him and he screams out at her: “That only works if you believe.” (or something like that). Then he knocks the crucifix out of her hand and grabs her with one hand by the neck ready to kill her when his hand suddenly bursts into flames and he jumps out the window trying to escape. The camera switches angles and we see that Kitty was wearing a Star of David around her neck.

Then in the woods something similar happens. Logan (who doesn believe in anything) starts waving a crucifix around and it does nothing and Dracula kills him and mutters under his breath: “Foolish unbeliever” (or something like that). Then he turns to attack Peter and Peter grabs the crucifix that Logan was waving around and says: “I am a believer” (or something like that) and Dracula starts smoking and screaming in pain.

That pretty much proves to me that it isn’t the object itself but the belief that the person has in the object. You realize, of course, all of this is made-up folklore and none of it is real anyway and we’re disagreeing about made-up stuff.

 

[Pillar_of_Cloud]

Sub-Zero:

Vampires, anyone here seen John Carpenter’s Vampires with James Woods as a hunter hired by the Vatican? An interesting story, I read the book it’s based on by John Steakley. It’s a lot better, Jack Crow actually has dinner with the Pope in the beginning.

I’d like to do that as a profession. But, they’re not real or are they?

Pillar of Clowd, I actually had an idea for a comic book on a Catholic Priest and a Protestant pastor working together to get rid of vampires in their town.

First, that’s rock’n Second, is there anyone into the anime (Japanese animation) culture here? There are tons of Christian-fighting-vampire stories there, each with their own little twist. The anime Hellsing (if based at all on Von Hellsing, very loosely) has one of my favorite Vampire slaying priests–Paladin Alexander Anderson, how he’s an overzealous Catholic if I’ve ever seen one!

 

[TobyLue]

I’m pretty sure my neighbor is a vampire…one of these days I might hide in the bushes in front of out apartment complex and throw some holy water on her before she gets in her car. Do you think she would mind?

No need to. Just check and see if her makeup is all over her face and her lipstick not on correctly. You know, she cant see herself in the mirror so she just has to guess her makeup is on right.

 

[estesbob]

StCsDavid:

Besides how would a Hollywood director direct an actor playing a Protestant? “Okay, when Dracula comes at you, be sure to ask him if he’s accepted Christ as his lord and personal savior.”

LOL!

 

[RobNY]

StCsDavid:

Besides how would a Hollywood director direct an actor playing a Protestant? “Okay, when Dracula comes at you, be sure to ask him if he’s accepted Christ as his lord and personal savior.”

He couldn’t. Protestants don’t believe in directors or any other type of non-biblical popish/romish authority.

[Ex., Where does it say in the bible that I need to be led by a director? Can’t I just act on my own? Can’t I just go directly to God? Christ is the *sole mediator and directors simply deny the sufficiency of His Cross!] (Alright, that was bad!)

Gottle of Geer: I’ve read your post several times, and have just decided to give up.

What above when Dracula goes after Kitty and she grabs the crucifix off the table and holds it up to ward him off

*Dracula *(Bram Stoker) precedes your Dracula. Nyah nyah nyah.