No, the Pope has NOT condemned Halloween!
Is Britain sick of the "American cult of Halloween"? No, but Damian Thompson is!
"Demonizing" Halloween only makes it more popular. . .Yup.
Truly frightening! Tolerant, peace-loving, open-minded Piskies rage incoherently.
Maybe a better strategy is to emphasize a more benign and scriptural interpretation and to claim what is truly ours as Christians on the strange little night we call Halloween.
ReplyDeleteActually I like Red Cardigan's entry on the subject: http://redcardigan.blogspot.com/2009/10/halloween-post-redhead-edition.html
Secular celebrations are just that: secular. And sometimes that's just fine--no one expects to have to infuse the Independence Day barbecue and fireworks ritual with a narrative about how Independence Day is a foreshadowing of our independence from sin, and the fireworks are reminders of the brevity of life and how all that is beautiful eventually becomes ash, and the barbecue is an example of hope, because we sure hope the guy in charge of the grill is using a meat thermometer instead of just guessing when the food is done...This is not, of course, to say that there's no place for prayer, for faith, at an Independence Day barbecue; it just means we don't have to try to turn a purely secular event into an adopted Catholic holiday, when that is simply not what it is.