Happy Halloween: A Reflection

by Stephen Fahrig, OMV, AC Librarian

In just a couple of days, Halloween will be upon us. For many Americans – especially children – the day is an opportunity to dress up in costumes, eat candy, and generally have some good, harmless fun. For some, however, the holiday has a darker meaning, conjuring up images of witchcraft and Satan worship. Christian opposition to Halloween is usually voiced within evangelical or fundamentalist circles, although some Catholics have jumped on the anti-Halloween bandwagon as well. Is Halloween harmless – or horrific? What stance should Catholics take toward its celebration?

I must confess from the outset that I have always had a fondness for Halloween. To those who know me well, this will come as no surprise, as this day happens to be my birthday. Like many American children, I grew up with trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins, listening to ghost stories, and all the other trappings that are associated with October 31st. However, in my case these festivities were inseparably linked with birthday presents, cake and candles, and occasionally a nice party. To top it all off, Halloween for me always meant a two-day school holiday. When I was a child, the Catholic school I attended always gave us the day off from school on a holy day of obligation. When November 1 came around each year, we got a double bonus: the pastor and principal scheduled two days worth of parent-teacher conferences on Halloween and All Saints’ Day, which for us kids meant two days free from class. No wonder I have happy memories of Halloween.

Having been up-front about my personal bias, I’ll now return to the original question: what attitude should Catholics have toward Halloween? I think a positive view of the holiday is more than justifiable, as long as a couple of points are kept in mind. First – and obviously – Catholics must disavow any practices associated with Halloween that are even remotely associated with witchcraft or satanic activity. It is tragic that a celebration which should be just a harmless bit of fun, particularly for young children, is used by some as a pretext for engaging in deeds of darkness. Critics of Halloween – especially among fundamentalist Protestants – will often use the nefarious acts of a sick minority to suggest that Halloween is rotten to the core, a deception imposed on an unsuspecting populace which induces them to give unknowing homage to Satan. Moreover, many of these same critics are virulently anti-Catholic, falsely claiming that the Roman Catholic Church took a satanic celebration (it wasn’t) and adapted it to her own “dark” purposes (she didn’t). The truth is, the Church relocated the venerable celebration of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days to the first days of November so as to “Christianize” the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain (a pagan holiday, yes, but pagan and satanic are not necessarily synonymous). This action (seen also in the Church’s celebration of Christmas on December 25, a time of ancient pagan festivity) is typical of Catholicism’s openness to points of common ground between Christian belief and the practices of other faiths.

This leads me to the second point. Catholics should celebrate Halloween – but in doing so, they should emphasize its connection to the great Christian celebrations of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days. The very name “Halloween” is of course an abbreviation of “All Hallows’ Eve” – an archaic reference to the vigil of All Saints’ Day. The annual festivals of All Saints’ and All Souls’ usher in an entire month in which Catholics traditionally pray for the faithful departed and reflect on their final destiny. These celebrations remind us of the powerful truth that Jesus Christ has conquered the powers of sin and darkness. He has opened the gates of heaven to the human race. Even as our children take a healthy delight in being scared by the ghosts and goblins of Halloween, we must remind them that, in the end, there is nothing in this life that we should ultimately fear, because Jesus is risen and victorious.

A healthy perspective on Halloween can include both the secular trappings of candy, jack-o-lanterns, etc. and the religious significance of the days that follow, much as a balanced approach to Christmas allows room for Santa Claus while keeping the primary focus on Christ’s birth. The imperative as regards Halloween is to ensure that due attention is given to the religious message of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days: rejoicing with the victorious members of the Church Triumphant on Nov. 1 and offering prayer and petition for the Church Suffering on Nov. 2.

I’ll end these thoughts with a personal observation. As I mentioned at the outset of this piece, my birthday happens to fall on Halloween. Perhaps I should find it ironic, even contradictory, that I celebrate the day of my birth on the eve of an entire month in which the Church reflects on death. Oddly, I don’t note any real disparity between the two. After all, from the perspective of Christian faith, death is but a re-birth to a new and better form of existence. As the beautiful words of the Catholic funeral liturgy remind us, “life is changed, not ended” when we depart from this world. If we keep this truth before our minds, we’ll have little to fear, not only on Halloween, but throughout every year of our lives.