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I always figured that Halloween had pagan roots, but you are telling me they are Catholic. Huh? How so?The origin and traditional customs associated with Halloween require no other explanation than that they are examples of the kinds of festivity that served as a means of celebrating the various holy days of the Catholic Liturgical Year. This includes everything from masquerades, feasting, and the associations of a given day of the year with supernatural or spiritual truths. I would draw a distinction between the violent, macabre imagery that characterizes the modern appropriation of Halloween as a kind of secular celebration...

Halloween had its beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, who were once found all over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November 1st on our present calendar. The date marked the beginning of winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and stored. The date marked both an ending and a beginning...

All Hallows' EveIssue: Is the celebration of Halloween a pagan feast? May a Catholic celebrate Halloween in good conscience? What is the history of this popular American holiday?Response: We celebrate Halloween on the evening before All Saints Day. The word itself is a shortened form of "All Hallows’ Eve," which quite literally means "the eve of All Saints." From the earliest days of the Feast of All Saints (mid 700s A.D.), Catholics observed October 31 as the vigil of this November 1 celebration. This feast commemorates the lives of Christians who lived exemplary lives of faith. Pope Sixtus IV introduced...

It was 494 years today that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. He wanted to debate the sale of indulgences with his fellow university professors. He wrote in Latin, but a nameless visionary translated the theses into German, carried them to the printing press, and enabled their dispersion far and wide. Luther ended up with more than he bargained for, but he proved to be no coward in defending the discoveries he was making in Scripture. When the Roman church wouldn’t serve him the treat of sufficiently addressing his concerns, he was consigned to...

The latest absentee ballot statistics released this afternoon by the state of Pennsylvania show a strong Republican tilt in the Keystone State, a bad sign for Democratic candidates up and down the ticket. According to the secretary of state’s office, 53,226 absentee ballots have been returned by registered Republicans in Pennsylvania compared with 37,631 by registered Democrats.

Haunted houses, ghosts, demons—our Western culture can’t seem to get enough of the spirit world. The latest Gallup poll indicates that 42% of Americans believe in demon possession, 37% believe in haunted houses, and 32% believe in ghosts. (Not just Americans are enthralled—40% of the British believe in haunted houses, too.) Though interest in the paranormal is widespread, the majority of people are skeptical. They discount all spirit activity, going so far as to deny the existence of Satan and demons. Atheists stated this view succinctly in a sign they planted next to a manger scene last Christmas at the...

I looked over the Halloween article but I was wondering how to explain that to my eleven year old. Do you have any articles written to children on this?—T.H., U.S. Many people celebrate Halloween without considering the history of the holiday. They put on costumes, attend parties, eat candy, and even pull pranks on neighbors. In fact, Americans spend billions of dollars each year decorating and preparing. But there’s more to Halloween than jack-o-lanterns and scary stories. Let’s take a quick trip back in time to see where some of these customs came from—and if Christians should take part. To...

October 31, 2005Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time Psalm: Monday 47 Reading IRom 11:29-36 Brothers and sisters:The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. Just as you once disobeyed God but have now received mercybecause of their disobedience,so they have now disobeyed in order that,by virtue of the mercy shown to you,they too may now receive mercy.For God delivered all to disobedience,that he might have mercy upon all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the...

HALLOWEEN: ITS ORIGINS AND CELEBRATION The celebration of Halloween has dual origins. The first is in a pre-Christian Celtic feast associated with the Celtic New Year. The second is in the Christian celebration of All Saints Day (Nov. 1st) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2). In the British Isles November 1st is called All Hallows, thus the evening before is All Hallows Eve. The Celtic FeastThe ancient Celtic peoples who inhabited England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Brittany (NW France) celebrated their New Year's Day on what would be November 1st on our calendar. Prior to their conversion to Catholicism these...

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS, October 31, 2002 - In the New England town of Salem, once considered the city of peace for the New World and the gateway to a glorious Christian commonwealth, the community prepares for the annual Halloween celebration, viewed by many as a triumph over the narrow-mindedness of Christianity. More than three hundred years after the now-infamous witch trials of 1692, Salem has become a Mecca for witches, as covens and practitioners of the occult arts gather from around the nation each October 31 to glory in paganism and identify with the city whose name has become synonymous with...

There are two cemeteries at the end of the street, one with toppling tombstones and the other quickly filling with ghosts. There is a real cemetery in this typical Canadian community as well, but its natural edginess pales in comparison even to the houses surrounding it. One, for example, has a full skeleton hanging by the neck off a porch beam. And neighbours up and down the street are hurrying to go one better -- a witch in the maple tree? a fogging machine along the walkway? -- before Thursday's Fright Final. No one seems quite sure when Halloween began...