Halloween

[Lost_Wanderer]

”Abstain from all appearance of evil” [1 Thessalonians 5:22].

But the LORD said to Samuel: Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. God does not see as a mortal, who sees the appearance. The LORD looks into the heart. - 1 Samuel 16:7

 

[Mickey]

Of course you have to avoid things that intend to make a connection to the occult.

This will be my last post on Halloween. I will always stand against the celebration of Halloween. I apologize if I have personally offended anyone in any way. Forgive this sinner. I suppose a forum is not a good place to hash out these issues. Sometimes I protest too loud.

The following post sums up how I feel about the whole subject. Peace and prayers to all:

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Halloween, as it is practiced rejoices in the irrelevance of spiritual evil. Today, spiritual evil is but a concept, and a dated one at that. Like all religious truth it is relative, and is thought to lie solely in the inner psychological landscape of the individual. Therefore, it is a matter of therapy and is of little importance to the cares and striving of the modern, pagan and secular world.

So, I don’t participate, but with that alone, I shouldn’t congratulate myself. What is more important is that I attain to stillness and salvation. If I do, “ten thousand around me will be saved.” I doubt that loudly protesting Halloween will accomplish as much.
**Fr John Moses

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[pnewton]

Although I have never seen an ex-cathedra statement from the Pope urging Roman Catholics to refrain from celebrating halloween, I have never seen a statement urging them to" have fun" and participate in this demonic celebration. Is this what you need…a papal infallible statement on halloween?

I did not ask for ex cathedra statements or infallible declarations. How about… anything specific to this practice.

 

[smswife]

As the mother of two sons age 9 and 11, I have been following this thread with some interest.

These are my thoughts:

Halloween can be a very Catholic celebration, as we mock Satan who has no more power over us who are baptized. Then the next day we celebrate and honor all of the Saints in Heaven who have defeated evil in their lives. That’s how we frame it in our house.

There are several problems however I think with Halloween as it is celebrated in the US today:

1. Our secular society seems in some cases to be not just mocking the devil but also mocking those who believe in his existence. After all, if Satan isn’t real, dressing as a devil is no more “scary” than dressing as a cartoon character. Materialism, as a predominent cultural philosophy, doesn’t really believe in any of those scary things (and chooses to ignore the fact that Death comes eventually to all).
2. The commercialism of the holiday has become big business, and many people spend more time and effort decorating for Halloween than they do for Christmas. This makes it seem like the holidays have similar importance.
3. Occultism has been incorporated in some aspects, such as people holding Halloween seances or using Ouija boards. More dangerously, these things are often presented as harmless “fun”.
4. I actually don’t like the idea I have seen here and on other Catholic sites of having children dress as saints (especially those who were killed in gory or gruesome ways) as I think that this can trivialize or even mock their sacrifice.
5. I personally have never liked scary or horror movies, books, games, etc. My boys like some of that stuff (like skeleton Legos, dressing like death or zombies). I don’t know if this is just personal preference (or gender difference) or the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Many good Catholics I know enjoy some of this stuff too.
6. Many costumes advertised especially for women (and in many cases little girls!) are sexually provacative, or at least immodest. I don’t even want my boys looking down the adult costume aisle.

So my kids dress in scary costumes (w/in reason, which of course is our parental judgement), go trick-or-treating, we paint pumkins, carve a jack-o-lantern, give out good candy, play some games (pumkin bowling, Halloween bingo, toilet paper covered mummies) and try to avoid the hype as much as possible (easier b/c we home school and drastically limit TV).

But I always feel I need to be hypervigilant about keeping some of the secular influences away. For example, we avoid the local amusement park’s Halloween show since it used a ouija board. And when I tried to explain why it was bad to my kids I scared the younger one (perhaps not a bad thing). We don’t go to Halloween “funhouses” b/c I don’t know what we’ll find there. We don’t watch Halloween shows or movies (other than Charlie Brown) b/c I don’t have the time or inclination to prescreen them for appropriateness.

Of course, this is not anymore than we have to do as parents for everything in our secular world.