Making Halloween Great Again!

Halloween, like so many popular holidays has become over-commercialized and drained of all its meaning. Perhaps it is time to rethink how we observe and celebrate it.

Since my kids are grown, I don’t get the opportunity to go trick-or-treating anymore. Nor does my neighborhood get many trick-or-treaters, since there are few young families in the neighborhood, and the town I live in hosts its own “trunk-or-treats” or other Halloween gatherings for children. One of the benefits is that I no longer have to engage in arguments with my Christian or fellow Catholic friends/parents about whether or not I should be “celebrating” Halloween or participating in trick-or-treating. The most common reasons that had against the holiday, straight out of some Jack Chick or Christian Fundamentalist tract, were almost always one of these three,

1. Halloween is really a pagan holiday that the Catholic Church co-opted many years ago in order to bring the ancient peoples of Ireland into the Church.

2. Because it is a high “unholy” day among satanists and wiccans, who will be out in force working their black magic on that night, why participate in it by trick-or-treating?

3. Even if there is a legitimate and historic Catholic aspect to Halloween—the Hallowtide Triduum—trick-or-treating is just giving into the over-secularization of one of the Church’s holy feast days. It’s a “holiday” filled with demonic and salacious elements that we Catholics should have no part in. Plus, kids don’t need all that candy anyways.

In regards to the first complaint, the idea that Halloween is rooted in pagan festivals, in particular the Celtic festival of Samhain, and that the Church changed it to become All Hallows Eve (from which we get the word “Halloween”), is one of those enduring historical myths which is on par with the ridiculous belief that people at the time of Columbus believed the world was flat. Catholic apologist Joel Heschmeyer has gone into great detail in debunking this pervasive myth, and suffice it to say, when one takes the time to consult original historical sources, we learn that by the time Christian missionaries arrived in Ireland, the Druids (who never wrote anything describing their practices) were already long gone thanks to Roman generals like Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Julius Agricola. There is very little documented evidence of what the ancient peoples of Ireland actually believed, or the holidays they might have celebrated. In fact, the claim that Samhain and Halloween are in any way connected did not surface until the 19^th century, specifically in books such as James Frazier’s The Golden Bough in which he attempted to make a comparative religion case (and a very poor one at that).

Concerning the second point, the Church has always venerated its martyrs, and November 1^st has been set aside as a day to honor the saints since the 8^th century A.D. Thus, any claims made by modern pagans, satanists, or wiccans about Halloween being one of their un-holy days is just that, a modern (and false) claim. Since these occult practitioners do not have a legitimate legacy to stand on—again there were no written records left by their supposed religious ancestors—they are only able to create their own ceremonies and feast days by mimicking and subverting Christianity.

Furthermore, even if these groups of people are engaging in “magic” ceremonies, or are attempting to call upon demonic forces on Halloween night, so what? Their spells and curses are no match for the proper liturgical observance of Hallowtide (All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day), whereby “the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” And these things should have no bearing or effect on your kids dressing up in costumes to go door-to-door for candy, as opposed to any other night they choose to gather together. There are few who complain or worry about these things, so why single out Halloween night?

Celebrating the Worst Our Culture has to Offer

However, when it comes to the third excuse (an over-secularized holiday), this is the only one I actually agree with, but at the same time do not accept their conclusion to eschew Halloween altogether. As I recently wrote, our culture has, through film and popular culture, become more and more enthralled with the macabre, the demonic and the indecent beginning with the 1960’s. Halloween decorations, especially yard ornamentals, usually consist of skeletons, zombies, vampires, and the most grotesque imagery of dismembered corpses. Walk into any retail store, and while you will still be able to find funny and wholesome ones, you will also find Halloween costumes that glorify fictional supernatural serial killers as well as all types of “sexy” costumes for women. More disturbing still, and to prove my point, here is a list of the most popular Halloween costumes ideas for this year as compiled by the website Ranker (which compiles data from various online polls. Examples include:

1. The Missing Epstein Files or Guest List

2. Charlie Kirk Zombie

3. Charlie Kirk’s Assassin or the Assassin’s “Furry” boyfriend.

4. Freed Hostage

5. Coldplay Kiss Cam Cheaters

6. A Bottle of Tylenol

7. Luigi Mangione

If these costumes do not prove how far our culture has turned Halloween into a celebration of some of the worst and most vile aspects of our popular and celebrity culture, then I do not know what does.

On an episode of the Culture War podcast, the host Tim Pool was speaking with a priest named Fr. Aaron Williams about exorcisms and the rise of demonic activity in America currently. As hyperbolic as that description sounds, the two-hour conversation was measured and factual as the two of them, as well as another host, talked about certain crimes and actions from the news which have no logical or rational explanation outside of the supernatural. Pool worried that by discussing the demonic as a possible explanation for certain events, people would eventually fall into superstition and eventually blame demons for everything. As an example, he started to talk about some of the “satanic panics” that surrounded Halloween and other notorious events when he was young, ones that I had also heard about myself as a kid.

Just as he was going to talk about how he feared generating another “satanic panic” currently, Fr. Aaron cut in with, “What panic?” The priest went on to say that so much of what we see out there in popular culture (such as Halloween, for example) is outright satanic, anti-Christian, and even blasphemous. But save for that faithful remnant of devout Christians, and some tradition-minded conservatives, no one is panicking. Sadly, no one flinches or morally winces at any of this. The Satanic Panics of the 1980’s have been downgraded to become barely acknowledged moments of concern, as the lives that we now live through our screens have numbed our sensibilities outside of our own immediate concerns. It is as though we have lost all sense of shame, guilt, shock, or repulsion to all of the degeneracy that now fills the world around us.

A Cultural Shift is Taking Place

Years ago, I asked a parent at my son’s daycare if she wanted to go trick-or-treating with me and my son. She said she was Christian and didn’t celebrate Halloween. As a lukewarm Catholic at the time, I told her that “neither do I, I just go trick-or-treating.” Times have changed since then, as I have rebuilt and improved upon my lackluster Catholic upbringing and now take my faith seriously. In my estimation, this seems to be the most effective curative for the malaise our culture currently finds itself in, which even the mainstream media is recognizing as younger Millennials and Gen Z are going through a bit of a religious revival (particularly towards conservative or orthodox expressions of the faith).

However, even if one chooses not to take a religious position on Halloween, it is still notable to see how our culture as a whole (as led by Gen Z) is tiring of the over-commercialization and excesses of American culture, especially with regards to how people celebrate holidays. Halloween is no different, and perhaps, just perhaps, people are finally starting to regain a sense of revulsion at how shockingly demonic, gruesome and deviant the holiday of Halloween has become. If one is not inclined to celebrate Halloween within the liturgical Hallowtide context, then perhaps we can instead bring back some traditional values in order to re-make Halloween as classy, wholesome, family-oriented and great again. Oh and yes, I can also cut back on the candy a bit. That is something I can probably bring myself to agree with.

Photo Credit- The Dallas Morning News, Instagram and Etsy.