AS Halloween grows in popularity in Australia, Catholics here are contending with a question that has haunted the United States Church for decades – to dress up in Halloween costumes or not.
Debate has raged about whether the origins of Halloween are truly pagan or not.
Some argue it comes from the Celtic pagan festival Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest season.
Dominican Father Augustine Thompson said in Catholic Parent magazine in 2000 that Halloween’s essential elements as they’re known today, the costumes and trick-or-treating, come from French All Souls’ Day cultural observances mixing with Guy Fawkes’ Day festivities.
He said the holiday was uniquely American.
But does that miss the point?
In his homily on Sunday, St Stephen’s Cathedral Dean Fr Anthony Mellor said the primary school next door to where he lived had a Halloween dance the other night.
“And, as is happening more and more around neighbourhoods across Australia, children came dressed in all sorts of ghoulish attire, such as ghosts, and witches and skeletons,” he said.
“I don’t want to sound like a piker, but I must say that I find this relatively recent and dark addition to children’s festivities all a bit much.
“What is happening to a society that wants to teach our children to celebrate death and all that is sinister?
“I was further troubled when I thought about the children in Gaza and Israel who have been disproportionate victims of the violence there in these last three weeks – at last count almost 3000 children have died on both sides, with more than double that injured.
“In this kind of world, dressing up a child to look like death should be seen as outrageous and shocking, in my humble opinion.
“In other parts of the world, gruesomeness and horror is no plaything.”
He pointed the faithful’s attention instead to Jesus’ “three point plan” to love God, love yourself and love others.
“That is how the whole teaching of Jesus comes together,” he said.
This week has a firm focus on matters of life and death in the Church.
Catholics (and all people) should not shy away from this discussion.
All Saints’ Day tomorrow honours the whole Communion of Saints, who departed from earthly life through death and entered eternal life.
The Church teaches that the saints, though having passed through death, are more alive than even we are.
All Souls’ Day is a day of prayer and remembrance of the Holy Souls in Purgatory, who have died and are in the process of purging the stain of sin before entering Heaven.
Every year the Church offers a plenary indulgence for work done over the next few days.
On All Souls’ Day a plenary indulgence, applicable only to the Holy Souls, is granted to those who visit any parish church or public oratory and there recite the Our Father and the Creed once.
Every day from November 1-8, a plenary indulgence, applicable only to the Holy Souls, is granted to those who visit a cemetery and pray, even if only mentally, for the departed. The usual conditions for indulgences apply:
1. Only one plenary indulgence can be granted per day.
2. It is necessary to be in the state of grace, at least by completion of the work.
3. Freedom from attachment to sin, even venial sin, is necessary to gain a plenary indulgence. To be free of attachment to sin means that there is no particular sin in our life that we are unwilling to renounce. If this condition is lacking, the indulgence is only partial.
4. Holy Communion must be received each time the indulgence is sought.
5. Prayers must be recited for the intentions of the Holy Father on each day the indulgence is sought. No particular prayers are prescribed. One Our Father and Hail Mary suffice.
6. A sacramental confession must be made within a week of completion of the prescribed work. One confession made during the week, made with the intention of gaining all the indulgences, suffices.
