USA Today: Vatican warns parents that Halloween is 'anti-Christian'?

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I think the key is in this part of the article:
It quotes a liturgical expert, Joan Maria Canals as saying, “Halloween has an undercurrent of occultism and is absolutely anti-Christian.”
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**Parents should “be aware of this and try to direct the meaning of the feast towards wholesomeness and beauty rather than terror, fear and death,” **says Father Canals, a member of a Spanish commission on church rites, the Telegraph reports.
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So don’t encourage your children to dress up like the devil or a ghost, let them dress up as something wholesome or beautiful.
 
So isn’t that a wrong interpretation by USA Today? There’s nothing wrong then with dressing up as angels, funny characters, superheroes and all that isn’t it? Basically the “celebration and fun” aspect of Halloween isn’t wrong it’s just the occult ties to it? Sorry, can’t express myself too well.

In that case, their headlines are very misleading! They’ll get more people to condemn our beloved Church!
 
Of course it’s wrong but by now it’s what most Catholics–indeed many non-Catholic Christians as well–expect of the media.

A. “The Vatican” is used whether the speaker is the Pope or anyone who could be considered part of the Vatican. A Swiss guard, a cleric, heck, the janitor would be quoted equally as “the Vatican” with no differentiation.

B. The worst possible ‘spin’ is put onto whatever is said. As in this case, the headline (which is often all that is read, or remembered, of an article) does not accurately reflect the message. The headline could as easily have read, “Vatican official suggests Hallowe’en costumes for children reflect beauty in make-believe rather than terror and ugliness”. . .but then it wouldn’t have gotten the anti-Catholics more convinced than ever of the ‘meanness’ and hypocrisy of Catholics, or made the ‘average’ person start to worry that maybe the media was right and these ‘Christian’ types really were out to take all the ‘fun’ out of the world. . .
 
The secular press has a severe misunderstanding of the place of L’Osservatore Romano in the life of the Church. L’Osservatore Romano is the Vatican newspaper, nothing more. It is not the official mouthpiece of the Pope. They report on what is going on at the Vatican, but they do not speak for the Vatican (AKA the Holy See). The Holy See speaks through various documents, not through a newspaper.

The secular press frequently puts forth anything that appears in L’Osservatore Romano as though it were an infallible, dogmatic statement from the Pope himself. That simply is not true. As you can see in the article, the headline comes from the fact that one person made this comment. He wasn’t speaking in any official capacity. He wasn’t issuing a dogmatic definition. He was offering his opinion.

Whenever an article in a secular paper begins with “Vatican says…”, be extremely skeptical. 99 out of 100 times, they are completely wrong.
 
Back before All Hallows Eve became Halloween, the tradition was for the children to dress up as their favorite Saint.
 
The media loves to distort the “Vatican’s” statements. What’s their problem?!!
 
Joe_5859 said:
The secular press has a severe misunderstanding of the place of L’Osservatore Romano in the life of the Church. L’Osservatore Romano is the Vatican newspaper, nothing more. It is not the official mouthpiece of the Pope. They report on what is going on at the Vatican, but they do not speak for the Vatican (AKA the Holy See). The Holy See speaks through various documents, not through a newspaper.

The secular press frequently puts forth anything that appears in L’Osservatore Romano as though it were an infallible, dogmatic statement from the Pope himself. That simply is not true. As you can see in the article, the headline comes from the fact that one person made this comment. He wasn’t speaking in any official capacity. He wasn’t issuing a dogmatic definition. He was offering his opinion.

Whenever an article in a secular paper begins with “Vatican says…”, be extremely skeptical. 99 out of 100 times, they are completely wrong.
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Right. I don’t see “The Vatican” or the Pope saying anything - all I see is an article from L’Osservatore Romano.
 
Joe_5859 said:
The secular press has a severe misunderstanding of the place of L’Osservatore Romano in the life of the Church. L’Osservatore Romano is the Vatican newspaper, nothing more. It is not the official mouthpiece of the Pope. They report on what is going on at the Vatican, but they do not speak for the Vatican (AKA the Holy See). The Holy See speaks through various documents, not through a newspaper.

The secular press frequently puts forth anything that appears in L’Osservatore Romano as though it were an infallible, dogmatic statement from the Pope himself. That simply is not true. As you can see in the article, the headline comes from the fact that one person made this comment. He wasn’t speaking in any official capacity. He wasn’t issuing a dogmatic definition. He was offering his opinion.

Whenever an article in a secular paper begins with “Vatican says…”, be extremely skeptical. 99 out of 100 times, they are completely wrong.
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The unfortunate truth is that far too often people believe them. I’ve had friends asking me, “Why would the Vatican do that?” when in actual fact the Church didn’t!
 
This is a deliberate attempt to smear Catholics as “out of the norm” or “backwards thinking”

I’m pretty sure Halloween hasn’t been a problem for the Catholic Church outside warning about true occult stuff. It’s just a holiday for candy. This is an attempt to make the “Vatican” seem like a spoil sport for children. I hate the news! :mad:

The headline speaks for itself “Vatican newspaper: Halloween is anti-Christian”

On the telegraph “Vatican has condemned Halloween as Anti-Christian”

:mad: yeah, because the Vatican is really slow on its feet to concern itself with commercialized Holidays. :rolleyes:
 
kooldood said:
The media loves to distort the “Vatican’s” statements. What’s their problem?!!
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not just the Vatican, everyone’s statements

if they don’t sensationalize, they won’t sell
thats the whole reason behind it
 
I’m leaning towards actually agreeing that Halloween IS a bad thing. You may know that it’s not a celebration that is made much of at all here in Australia, so I have an unbiased view of it.

For one - what reason on earth is there for any celebration on the day BEFORE All Saint’s Day except the pagan idea that devils, ghosts and whatnot roamed free on that particular evening? If you must dress up and celebrate - especially as a saint - do it November 1, the actual commemoration of all the saints, not October 31. 🤷

For two - talk about encouraging gluttony, material greed and a host of other sins, as if we in our society need any more encouragement for those. ‘Give me candy, because if you don’t I have the right to play some trick on you’? What kind of message is that sending to kids? Almost sounds like thinly disguised highway robbery.
 
kooldood said:
The media loves to distort the “Vatican’s” statements. What’s their problem?!!
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]## Ignorance & stupidity - theirs, and that of Catholics, who fail to make the necessary distinctions mentioned in previous posts.

People want one-sentence answers to questions - but life is seldom that straightforward. As those in the the Vatican dicasteries are well aware. For some reason, biology, maths & other sciences are allowed to be difficult - but not Christian doctrine, or any part of it. Problems which have tried the wisest and most learned for centuries, must be answered to the questioner’s satisfaction in one sentence using words of one syllable that a six-year old could could fathom 😦 :mad: Is it any surprise that this attitude affects the reporting of news of religious matters ?
 
LilyM said:
I’m leaning towards actually agreeing that Halloween IS a bad thing. You may know that it’s not a celebration that is made much of at all here in Australia, so I have an unbiased view of it.

For one - what reason on earth is there for any celebration on the day BEFORE All Saint’s Day except the pagan idea that devils, ghosts and whatnot roamed free on that particular evening? If you must dress up and celebrate - especially as a saint - do it November 1, the actual commemoration of all the saints, not October 31. 🤷
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Well at least it’s not as bad as Mardi Gras, celebrations, lol.
For two - talk about encouraging gluttony, material greed and a host of other sins, as if we in our society need any more encouragement for those. ‘Give me candy, because if you don’t I have the right to play some trick on you’? What kind of message is that sending to kids? Almost sounds like thinly disguised highway robbery.
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As a kid growing up, there was some pretty good family bonding amongst my siblings with harmless costumes in the suburbs amongst friends. Of course as we grew up, by the time we were teenagers we didn’t care about Halloween, and by then, we didn’t go out for candy anymore so we’d chaperone, our younger family members to get candy in their cute little costumes. By the time we all reached high school , and as my older siblings and I went to college consecutively, that left my parents in charge, who didn’t care for the holiday when we grew up, so they turned out the lights, no more candy for kids, lol)…pretty fickle. But, that’ does highlight innocuous Halloween was for us.

While I agree with some of the comments of that paper in the article, about it being hijacked by adults to promote wanton / terror stuff.
The immoral people who go overboard, just like with Mardi Gras, celebrations will be immoral anyway, no matter what. Yes, they should be discouraged from being of influence, but I just don’t see mainstream people going above and beyond costumes/decorations or paying attention to the weirdos who are “way” into it… and pardon my language, you know? The freaks.

We have to remember anything can be turned into a good, too. Nobody when we were kids threatened “Trick” if we didn’t get candy, people don’t bother to consider the “trick” anymore unless they’re already the prankster jerk kids, but little 8 year olds are chaperoned.
And house’s that didn’t participate just left their lights off. Maybe I’m out of touch with today’s kids, but when I see cute toddlers in bug outfits still, so I don’t really think the holiday is that outrageous from when I was a kid.
I had a pleasant experience, and the use of Halloween as an excuse for older people to celebrate it by having costume parties (akin to Masquerade balls) seems like nothing to be worried about.

My Halloween experience growing up was pretty joyous and happy even if it was a secular participation, and we still celebrated feast days. 🤷
 
An article published in the Vatican’s official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano says “Halloween has an undercurrent of occultism and is absolutely anti-Christian.”
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Yep. Obviously distorted.
 
It IS the ONLY time of the year all your neighboors get out of the house and meet each other. I can’t understand why that’s a bad thing. Jesus said, “love they neighboor” (in the metaphorical sense, but literall too), well how do I do that if I don’t know my neighboor?

I have a neighboor whose daughter is in the same class as mine, but we’ve never had the opportunity to meet and get to know each other. Yesterday, our kids went out trick our treating and it was so nice to finally get to know her, and she is very, very nice. Also, everyone was kind, there was no cruel pranks or anything like that in my neighboorhood. Neighboors who wanted to pass out candy were sitting on their porch or in their lawn chairs, those who did not, had their lights out.

We ran into some people we didn’t know that lived in our neighboorhood.

Why is that so bad? 🤷

The only thing I want to say about Oct 31 to the post that said celebrate on the day of, in Catholic tradition, you may start the celebration for any holy day or special catholic day on the eve of. The bible ok’s it. 👍

I didn’t get a chence to go to the cemetary, cuz I work nightshift, but I am going on Nov. 2 - All Souls day and the am day mass after work.
 
Veridical16 said:
Well at least it’s not as bad as Mardi Gras, celebrations, lol.

As a kid growing up, there was some pretty good family bonding amongst my siblings with harmless costumes in the suburbs amongst friends. Of course as we grew up, by the time we were teenagers we didn’t care about Halloween, and by then, we didn’t go out for candy anymore so we’d chaperone, our younger family members to get candy in their cute little costumes. By the time we all reached high school , and as my older siblings and I went to college consecutively, that left my parents in charge, who didn’t care for the holiday when we grew up, so they turned out the lights, no more candy for kids, lol)…pretty fickle. But, that’ does highlight innocuous Halloween was for us.

While I agree with some of the comments of that paper in the article, about it being hijacked by adults to promote wanton / terror stuff.
The immoral people who go overboard, just like with Mardi Gras, celebrations will be immoral anyway, no matter what. Yes, they should be discouraged from being of influence, but I just don’t see mainstream people going above and beyond costumes/decorations or paying attention to the weirdos who are “way” into it… and pardon my language, you know? The freaks.

We have to remember anything can be turned into a good, too. Nobody when we were kids threatened “Trick” if we didn’t get candy, people don’t bother to consider the “trick” anymore unless they’re already the prankster jerk kids, but little 8 year olds are chaperoned.
And house’s that didn’t participate just left their lights off. Maybe I’m out of touch with today’s kids, but when I see cute toddlers in bug outfits still, so I don’t really think the holiday is that outrageous from when I was a kid.
I had a pleasant experience, and the use of Halloween as an excuse for older people to celebrate it by having costume parties (akin to Masquerade balls) seems like nothing to be worried about.

My Halloween experience growing up was pretty joyous and happy even if it was a secular participation, and we still celebrated feast days. 🤷
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I noticed something different this year. What I noticed is all the people with the ghoulish face paint on. We had princesses with ghoulish face paint. Prom queens, with ghoulish face paint, and BABIES with ghoulish face paint! :whacky: Honestly, it was nuts. Why put face paint on a baby, much less ghoulish face paint. It seemed like over half the people I saw had white faces with black around their eyes and red “drip” marks to signify blood, yes even the babies. :eek:

I do agree that Halloween is a good time to visit with the neighbors. We go though are local downtown area and it seems like half the countryside comes out. DH and I always run into someone we haven’t talked to in a while. 👍

The Church has never had a problem with All Hallows Eve. The issue, if there is any, is with the way some people may be celebrating the holiday. The newspapers and media are losing credibility with each passing year.
 
LilyM said:
For one - what reason on earth is there for any celebration on the day BEFORE All Saint’s Day except the pagan idea that devils, ghosts and whatnot roamed free on that particular evening? If you must dress up and celebrate - especially as a saint - do it November 1, the actual commemoration of all the saints, not October 31. 🤷
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To be fair, though, all the biggest feast days of the Church have a way of spilling over to the day before in joyous anticipation: Christmas Eve, the Easter Vigil. These two days (along with other Solemnities such as the Assumption, Nativity of John the Baptist, Sts. Peter & Paul) even have different readings for the Vigil Mass than they do for the day itself.

I guess it’s part of Catholic culture to start celebrating a little bit early. 🙂
 
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