The question often arises about the celebration of Halloween by Catholics. Is it, for instance, "pagan" to dress up and go about as ghosts and goblins? The question often comes up because many modern Christians (mostly non-Catholic ones) believe that Halloween has something to do with worshipping the devil and participating in witchcraft. The truth is that the origins of Halloween are rooted deeply in the theology and popular customs of Catholics. It is a revision of actual history to say that our modern celebration of Halloween has origins in Druid customs. It is said that the ancient Celts celebrated a major feast on October 31st, but the fact is that they celebrated a festival on the last day of almost every month.
Halloween, a contraction of "All Hallows Eve," falls on October 31st because the Feast of All Saints, or "All Hallows," falls on November 1st. The feast in honor of all the Saints used to be celebrated on May 13th, but Pope Gregory III, in 731, moved it to November 1st, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter's in Rome. This feast spread throughout the world. In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in France, added a celebration on November 2nd. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. Therefore, the Church had a feast for the Saints and those in Purgatory.
It was the Irish Catholics who came up with the idea to remember somehow those souls who did not live by the Faith in this life. It became customary for these Irish to bang on pots and pans on All Hallow's Eve to let the damned know that they were not forgotten. In Ireland, then, all the dead came to be remembered. This, however, is still not exactly like our celebration of Halloween. On Halloween we also dress up in costumes.
This practice arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. During the horrible bubonic plague, the Black Death, Europe lost half of her population. Artists depicted this on walls to remind the people of their own mortality. These pictures and representations are known as the "Dance of Death" or "Dance Macabre." These figures were commonly painted on cemetery walls and showed the devil leading a daisy chain of people into the tomb. Sometimes the dance was re-enacted on All Soul's Day as a living tableau, with people dressed up as the dead. But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween, and the Irish, who celebrated Halloween, did not dress up.
The two were brought together in the colonies of North America during the 18th century, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. Thus the two celebrations became mingled, and we began dressing up on Halloween. It is, as we can see, a very "American" holiday, but Catholic as well.
Another part of this holiday is called “Trick-or-Treating.” It comes from the traditional Catholic practice, started in the 9th century, of “souling.” Catholics in England had a tradition of going from house to house and begging for soul cakes on All Souls Day. The beggars would receive a small cake marked with a cross. For each soul cake received, the person promised to say a prayer for the benefactor’s beloved dead in Purgatory.
I hope that you can see Halloween, not as something that threatens the faith of our children, but as a fun time to remind us all about important truths. Christmas and Halloween are the only two holidays we have left in America with customs surrounding them. In the days of Catholic Europe there were a lot of these types of celebrations associated with our Catholic feasts and solemnities. These were celebrations that grew up as a result of Catholic practices and beliefs. The notion that Halloween is evil is quite untrue. While it is true that Halloween was more popular in Celtic Europe (Irish Catholics), there were similar celebrations among the German and Latin Catholics on All Souls Day. Halloween can still serve the purpose of reminding us about Hell and how to avoid it. Halloween is also a day to prepare us to remember those who have gone before us in Faith, those already in Heaven and those still suffering in Purgatory. Halloween is a time to let people know about the Catholic roots and significance of this celebration.
Sources: Compiled by Father Scott Archer from information from the Diocese of Peoria, and adapted from an original article by Father Augustine Thompson
