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JOHNYJ
Guest
Catholics have never had the pro blem with Halloween that some protestants have. Its a childrens holiday,its for fun and dressing up, its no big deal.
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AlanFromWichita
Guest
I don’t like it anymore.
When I grew up we’d go work the neighborhood for a couple hours, then have big bags of candy.
Now I live in town with relatives and so of course we have to shuttle the kids there and show them off and then they usually trick-or-treat there.
Our particular neighborhood is kind of in a corner and sometimes gets maybe 1-2 parties of TOTers all night.
Plus, it’s so bad timing that it’s always right after we end Daylight Savings Time so it’s dark before you can hardly get a kid out there.
Dark used to be OK, but nowadays we have so many precautions.
I try to play along because I still think the kids like it, but less so every year. I know people do evil things that night, but so do they other nights and I don’t fear the darkness. Sometimes I think there’s people working voodoo on me, and maybe they are, who knows! If I’m going to do the work of God I have to be tought enough to handle any “paybacks” from the evil one. Now is letting my kids participate in Halloween the “work of God?” For the moment I’ll pass on answering that.
Alan
Alan
When I grew up we’d go work the neighborhood for a couple hours, then have big bags of candy.
Now I live in town with relatives and so of course we have to shuttle the kids there and show them off and then they usually trick-or-treat there.
Our particular neighborhood is kind of in a corner and sometimes gets maybe 1-2 parties of TOTers all night.
Plus, it’s so bad timing that it’s always right after we end Daylight Savings Time so it’s dark before you can hardly get a kid out there.
Dark used to be OK, but nowadays we have so many precautions.
I try to play along because I still think the kids like it, but less so every year. I know people do evil things that night, but so do they other nights and I don’t fear the darkness. Sometimes I think there’s people working voodoo on me, and maybe they are, who knows! If I’m going to do the work of God I have to be tought enough to handle any “paybacks” from the evil one. Now is letting my kids participate in Halloween the “work of God?” For the moment I’ll pass on answering that.
Alan
Alan
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jax8686
Guest
Most catholics have no idea that there is anything evil out there either… My priest for instance doesnt beleive in Satan… does that make it any less real? NO! and therefore most of the reason Catholics dont have a problem with it is because they dont realize all the satanist activity that happens all that night. all the children that go missing, a large number end up as sacrafices. and (this comes from a former satanist), they will grab a hitch hiker and beat and torment him, and then nail him on a cross to show how “Satan defeated Jesus when he nailed Him to the cross”. Halloween is one of the biggest nights for this sort of activity. and i dont kwon if i said it before, but all those ghosts that would appear in the pagan days, sounds alot liek demonics…just a thought…
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brotherhrolf
Guest
Let me give you another perspective on this. I grew up in New Orleans and have lived my entire life in south Louisiana. Halloween is day (or night) one in a trinity of days devoted to remembering our dead. All Hallow’s Eve is, of course, the Celtic feast of Samhain (pronounced Sowen or close enough). It is the day/night when the veils between the worlds (living and dead) are thinnest. There is, of course, a whole lot of ancient Celtic mythology involved in this which I am not going to get into. It is sufficient to say that the majority of authentic practice of Halloween in the United States is Irish in origin. Ghosts, pookas, banshees, etc. This is not to say, however, that these practices did not exist in some fashion in other European Catholic countries - notably France and Spain nor do I leave out the folks in Central America. We went trick or treating just like any other kid across the US.
November 1 was All Saints Day. It was a holy day of obligation in more ways than one. The entire extended family (grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, kids, aunts, uncles, cousins) would descend upon the family tomb. Since the water table is so high in New Orleans, we have to bury our dead above ground in crypts and tombs. The day would start with us kids being assigned to go get buckets of water. The tomb was scrubbed clean with soap and water. When it was clean, the topsoil would be tilled - just like you would prepare a garden for planting. The marble flower pots and other headstones would have the gold paint of the inscriptions “touched up” . The tomb itself would be freshly whitewashed. When that was finished, it was time for lunch. Entire families would eat ham sandwiches and potato salad (what can I say, I am Irish) while waiting for the whitewash to dry. After we ate and the whitewash was dry, flowers would be put into the bases and flowering plants would be put into the soil. Around two o’clock, all would proceed to the tiny chapel in the cemetary where Father would say Mass - most of us being outside.
Now, my grandfather (father’s father) was born and raised Catholic. He married my grandmother who was divorced and Protestant. A huge no-no in New Orleans during the 1910s. So, my great aunt on my mother’s side (who went to school with and was a good friend of my great aunt on my father’s side) would solemnly take my brother and sister and I over to visit my Catholic relatives on my father’s side of the family. Each and every All Saint’s Day.
On All Soul’s Day we were back in chuch praying for all the deceased. In south Louisiana, candles are lit for the souls of all the departed on All Saints and All Souls day.
There are many connections between this and the central American celebrations of Los Dios (sp? donde esta dictionario mio?) de los Muertos. Same thing just a different culture.
Fast forward to 1992 when we moved out here to fundamentalist land east of Baton Rouge. Halloween. My kids (at that time 10 and 8) are ready to go trick or treating. Not a light showed on our street. Not a light showed in any direction. They cried and cried.
We gave them all the candy we had for the trick or treaters who never came.
The following year, people built a house across the street. The father was an associate pastor of a fundamentalist church in our town. They invited our kids to go to a “harvest festival”. Took my kids to a “Hell House”…
As a Catholic whose ancestors had such traditions, I’d rather see my grandchildren celbrate Halloween than endure the trauma of a protestant Hell House on what is, after all, three days of remembering our ancestors.
November 1 was All Saints Day. It was a holy day of obligation in more ways than one. The entire extended family (grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, kids, aunts, uncles, cousins) would descend upon the family tomb. Since the water table is so high in New Orleans, we have to bury our dead above ground in crypts and tombs. The day would start with us kids being assigned to go get buckets of water. The tomb was scrubbed clean with soap and water. When it was clean, the topsoil would be tilled - just like you would prepare a garden for planting. The marble flower pots and other headstones would have the gold paint of the inscriptions “touched up” . The tomb itself would be freshly whitewashed. When that was finished, it was time for lunch. Entire families would eat ham sandwiches and potato salad (what can I say, I am Irish) while waiting for the whitewash to dry. After we ate and the whitewash was dry, flowers would be put into the bases and flowering plants would be put into the soil. Around two o’clock, all would proceed to the tiny chapel in the cemetary where Father would say Mass - most of us being outside.
Now, my grandfather (father’s father) was born and raised Catholic. He married my grandmother who was divorced and Protestant. A huge no-no in New Orleans during the 1910s. So, my great aunt on my mother’s side (who went to school with and was a good friend of my great aunt on my father’s side) would solemnly take my brother and sister and I over to visit my Catholic relatives on my father’s side of the family. Each and every All Saint’s Day.
On All Soul’s Day we were back in chuch praying for all the deceased. In south Louisiana, candles are lit for the souls of all the departed on All Saints and All Souls day.
There are many connections between this and the central American celebrations of Los Dios (sp? donde esta dictionario mio?) de los Muertos. Same thing just a different culture.
Fast forward to 1992 when we moved out here to fundamentalist land east of Baton Rouge. Halloween. My kids (at that time 10 and 8) are ready to go trick or treating. Not a light showed on our street. Not a light showed in any direction. They cried and cried.
We gave them all the candy we had for the trick or treaters who never came.
The following year, people built a house across the street. The father was an associate pastor of a fundamentalist church in our town. They invited our kids to go to a “harvest festival”. Took my kids to a “Hell House”…
As a Catholic whose ancestors had such traditions, I’d rather see my grandchildren celbrate Halloween than endure the trauma of a protestant Hell House on what is, after all, three days of remembering our ancestors.
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Angainor
Guest
… … If you say so. I’ll stock up on silver bullets.
Those aren’t vampires, they’re psychopaths. I would be negligent if I told kids that psychopaths didn’t exist.
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deb1
Guest
For those of you who are scratching your heads wondering what a hell house is…Here is a link.
offoffoff.com/film/2002/hellhouse.php3
I don’t know if Hell Houses exist outside of the south. It is a fundamentalist version of a haunted house, only more hate filled. Rooms are set up with actors pretending to be characters that are going to hell…a girl getting an abortion, a gay person etc. I have never been in one, but I have read articles on them. I never saw one outside of the south.
Very strange and makes one happy to be Catholic.
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jax8686
Guest
Angainor, why do you reply so arrogantly? those psycopaths drink the blood in order to gain power from demons entering them. origionally vampires were not the blood sucking night creatures that secularization has made them to be. and as for your extremely rude comment about silver bullets, anyone who konws the smallest little detail about demons will know how pointless that is. when a demon enters the body of a willing person, the demon can bring about physical changes to the body, and make them take on the appearance of the mythical werewolf. if you did shoot a person under that transformation, the demon would simply leave the body, the transformation would reverse, and you would simply be left with a dead body… but you sound like you dont beleive in demons, or that they can affect you in any way, so i wouldnt be worried, your “safe” from everything slightly bad, cuz your a catholic…
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Angainor
Guest
I already said I learned to ridicule ghosts and goblins as a kid, because of Halloween.
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the_phoenix
Guest
I had the honor of hearing a sermon on Halloween given by Rev. Thomas Sheehan, who served at my parish in the Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio until his retirement. Below please allow me to quote from a Catholic pamphlet that this priest wrote on the subject, published in 1997.
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Angainor
Guest
Alright, let’s say I believed you that there are such things as demon-possessed lycanthropes and undead satanists. That does sound pretty serious. What do you think I should about it besides not celebrating Halloween?
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Psalm45_9
Guest
Jimmy Akin wrote about the faithful celebrating All Hollow’s Eve:
jimmyakin.org/
scroll down to the middle of his blog.
jimmyakin.org/
scroll down to the middle of his blog.
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gloryb
Guest
It seems to be a personal thing. No one is told not to do it but I think it has a lot to do with how you do it. Candy at the door is one thing and ghosts, witches, and goblins are something else.
I think that some of the evangelicals have a good idea with it. When I was a Baptist the church I attended had a “pumpkin party” where the children could get dressed up as anything but witches and those sorts of things. They played games and got candy and heard a Bible story.
Some didn’t like it, thinking it was still Halloween, but I think it was good for the kids. They would surely envy their friends for going out, having fun, and getting candy. This allowed them their fun and it was safe.
I wish our Catholic churches would do this sort of thing.
Gloryb
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jax8686
Guest
Dont get me wrong Angainor, im not saying they dont exist other days besides halloween. what i am saying, is that Halloween is a very unholy day, a day when all satanists worship Satan in ways they usually dont, this kind of activity brings out very very evil possibilities for things to happen to people. now, how hard would it be for one of them to fit in a crowd of people all dressed in crazy costumes? or how easy would it be fro a few kids to go missing when no one really can tell the difference between this power ranger or the next. like so many other people have said, hallows eve should be a time of prayer and preparation for the coming feast day. i know lots of kids who havent gone out on halloween for a day in their lives, and they dont feel like theyve missed anything… as much as christianity stole the holiday from the pagans, who worshiped demons, satan and his demons have taken it back, and everyone is so secularized that they dont even begin to see it…
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Elphaba
Guest
The devil and hell are real. It is a mistake to ignore them.
Here is an article on how to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve in Catholic fashion. seekwisdom.org/articles/cathhalloween.htm
BTW, the creeps who want to steal or harm your children do it all year long, right under your noses. Some of them are people you know.
Here is an article on how to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve in Catholic fashion. seekwisdom.org/articles/cathhalloween.htm
BTW, the creeps who want to steal or harm your children do it all year long, right under your noses. Some of them are people you know.
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Mr.Bee
Guest
Halloween, and many other rituals, fads and traditions, (Harry Potter, heavy metal rock ‘n’ roll…) have fallen victim to superstition. They’re only dangerous if we allow them to be. As Christians we need to define and seperate the difference between faith and superstition, I personally feel many fundamentalists are confused between the two and let meaningless beliefs get the better of them. Many things can be misunderstood and “worshiped”, even less obvious things like fashion and popular entertainment.
I believe God is not disapproving of children dressing up and visiting the neighborhood for candy. He does disapprove when people use it for getting attention.
I believe God is not disapproving of children dressing up and visiting the neighborhood for candy. He does disapprove when people use it for getting attention.
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Chris_Jacobsen
Guest
When I was a kid, the nuns encourage us to dress up as saints. We had to wear a saint’s costume for our Halloween party at school.
I’ve heard stories of what happened before kids went trick or treating on Halloween. The kids just went tricking.
I’ve heard stories of what happened before kids went trick or treating on Halloween. The kids just went tricking.
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Valtiel
Guest
I’ve read a myriad of protestant views on halloween, all raveing on about it being the devils holiday inhistory and influence…
But what is the catholic understanding of halloween, do catholics view it the same way as protestants???
But what is the catholic understanding of halloween, do catholics view it the same way as protestants???
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