Pints With Aquinas - 77.5 Is it okay for Christians to celebrate Halloween?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 77.5. That's right, it's one of those in-the-middle episodes where I discuss stuff that you want to talk about, but just really quickly. It'll only be like seven minutes or something. It's about Halloween, okay? It's about Halloween. So, you know, enjoy the show.

Starting point is 00:00:29 Hey guys, welcome to Pints with Aquinas. This is just going to be a short episode to address something that a lot of people have been asking lately. Don't worry, tomorrow's episode will come out as usual, so look forward to that. It's going to be a real good one, I think. But today I want to address the topic of Halloween. If you're not joining and chatting with us at the Pints with Aquinas forum on Facebook, feel free to join us. Just go to Facebook, type in Pints with Aquinas in the search bar, and you can join the group.

Starting point is 00:00:58 But here's something somebody said recently. They said, we really need an objective consensus on the origins of Halloween. I visit so many articles, including within Catholic circles, and they all seem to differ in certain points. Some say the secular practice is flat-out satanic, others not so much. Others enjoy it. Personally, I'm inclined not to celebrate it, unless it's the celebration of Vigil Mass for All Souls Eve. Beyond that, I'm not attracted at all to the fun side of it. Does anyone have any good sources that don't seemingly contradict each other? So let me address this issue. I think the first thing to say is, it's one thing if you yourself don't want to celebrate Halloween. It's another thing if you begin telling other people that they shouldn't celebrate it. In the first instance, that's just

Starting point is 00:01:41 a matter of your personal preference, your personal opinion. Maybe that has to do with your understanding of your children and what you think is appropriate for them. Fine. But if somebody wants to start coming out and telling other Catholics and other Christians that they ought not to celebrate Halloween, well, I don't think that's okay. And we'll get to that in this short episode. But first of all, Halloween, the word etymologically comes from All Hallows' Eve. And the reason for that is that it's the day before All Saints' Day. And of course, hallow coming from the word holy. That's why we say in the Our Father, hallowed be thy name. And so how does the church celebrate All Hallows' Eve or Halloween? Well, there are a couple of ways in which the

Starting point is 00:02:25 church celebrates it. I suppose one would be the Liturgy of the Hours. But of course, many lay people don't pray the Liturgy of the Hours, although you're welcome to, but many priests do. Also, of course, just like this person said on the forum, you might go to Holy Mass on the day before All Saints Day, right? Halloween. So that's another way that you can celebrate Halloween in a way that the Catholic Church has allowed you to celebrate it. Okay. But we need to say this, okay? First of all, Halloween did not originate from a pagan holiday. That's not true. It is a sort of byproduct or a result that kind of spiraled from this Catholic feast. And so, we should ask ourselves three questions because it seems to me when people try and argue against celebrating Halloween, they're saying one of three things, okay? So,

Starting point is 00:03:19 the first point is, is it okay to participate in a cultural celebration that has stemmed from a Catholic feast? All right. So, it doesn't have, you know, a lot to do with the actual feast. It's sort of a byproduct of it. It's something that's evolved from it. Is that okay? The second question is, is it okay to dress up, you know, and to celebrate this feast or just to dress up at all? And thirdly, is it okay to dress up as something scary? All right. So I think those are the three issues that we have to respond to. So, you know, first of all, is it okay to participate in a cultural celebration that is stemmed from a Catholic feast? Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, I didn't have Halloween growing up in Australia.

Starting point is 00:04:02 We never celebrated it. It wouldn't surprise me if they're celebrating it now because of the influence of American culture on Australia, but I never celebrated it. But I did celebrate some other things, some other cultural celebrations, namely Easter and Christmas. And when you think about it, many of the ways in which we celebrate these feasts have little to do with the actual Catholic feast. I mean, I know you can make an argument and say, well, St. Nicholas, you know, like the gift to the world and just like St. Nicholas, he apparently gave gifts to children and therefore there's some connection. You're like, yeah, okay, maybe, but like, let's be honest, like this is a cultural celebration that has really

Starting point is 00:04:39 evolved from the Catholic feast and that's okay., you're welcome to celebrate it that way if you want to. You know, we might also talk about Easter. You know, on Easter Sunday, my parents would hide chocolate eggs around the house and outside, although that was never a great idea since it got rather hot in Australia and the eggs would be melted if you didn't find them within a few hours. But I mean, like, what does that have to do with Jesus Christ rising from the dead? I mean, again, you could make some kind of association, but let's be honest, this is a cultural celebration that has evolved from a Catholic feast. Halloween is similar, and so therefore it is okay, unless you want to say that it's not okay to celebrate Christmas

Starting point is 00:05:19 and Easter in any way that your culture is celebrating it, which to me seems a bit of a stretch and actually quite ridiculous, then yeah, you can celebrate Halloween even though this is something that doesn't really have a lot to do, at least the cultural celebration of it, with All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Day. Secondly, is it okay to dress up? Yeah, it's totally cool to dress up. Kids do it all the time. They dress up as superheroes. They dress up as superheroes.

Starting point is 00:05:52 They dress up as animals. Sometimes they dress up as scary animals, right? It's okay. Third question. I mean, put it this way. If it's not okay to dress up, like stop watching television, stop going to plays because these people are clearly playing a part, not only dressing up, but pretending to be something that they're not, okay? And yet we recognize this is clearly fine. The third thing is, is it okay to dress up as something scary? Is that intrinsically wrong? No, no, it's not. It's not intrinsically wrong, right? Why would it be? I mean, maybe you've seen The Walking Dead. And if that's too gruesome for you, maybe you've seen the old Frankenstein movie or Dracula. These are movies or plays of people who are dressing up as something scary. And I don't think there are many Catholics out there who would say, my children will never see the old

Starting point is 00:06:35 Frankenstein movie, or I don't want them to know about Dracula or read a book about Dracula or see people pretending to be these particular creatures. I mean, maybe you do, and that's fine. Like, you're the parent, do what you want. I think what bothers me is that when, you know, it's one thing to say, again, it's one thing to say, I don't want to celebrate Halloween, I don't feel comfortable with it. It's another thing when you start making this demand upon other Christians. I've said it before, being a faithful Catholic doesn't mean just submitting

Starting point is 00:07:04 to what the church teaches authoritatively. That's part of it. It also means not demanding uniformity where the church has allowed diversity of opinion or custom. Let me say that again. Being a faithful Catholic means not just submitting to what the church has taught authoritatively. All right. That's part of it, of course. It also means not demanding uniformity where the church has allowed diversity of opinion or custom. And when it comes to the celebration of Halloween, the church doesn't have a teaching on this, right? The church doesn't tend to have teachings on particular cultural celebrations, as if there's people in the Vatican, you know, writing papers on how holidays ought to be celebrated in particular countries.

Starting point is 00:07:51 No, it doesn't say that. So, there are a few thoughts for you. Now, I mean, let's say some other things. You know, like, it's one thing if my child wants to dress up as, like, Dracula, right? Suppose, you know, he dresses up as something scary or a zombie or something and the other kids, you know, know that he's dressing up. Well, this can be quite empowering, you know, like it can teach our kids that they don't have to be afraid of these things, right? And so long as all the kids know that it's a joke, right? It's kind of fun, right? I mean, and Jimmy Akin from Catholic Answers, a friend of mine has used this example elsewhere. I mean, Aiken from Catholic Answers, a friend of mine, has used this example elsewhere. I mean, we see play and play fighting and all this stuff in other animals as well. Like you see cats play fighting

Starting point is 00:08:30 and dogs play fighting, and often it looks real. And the reason they're doing this is in part to prepare themselves for actual scary situations that they're bound to face, in which you and I are bound to face because we live in a scary fallen world, okay? That said, you know, if my child gets dressed up as Dracula, and he starts legitimately scaring people, right? Because they don't know that this is a play. They're not in on the joke. Well, that's clearly, I think, inappropriate, all right? So, that'd be one thing to say. I think, secondly,, obviously we shouldn't be dressing up as something that is immodest, right? That would celebrate sin. And I think, you know, the sorts of costumes I'm talking about that usually stupid parents are the ones dressing up as these sorts of

Starting point is 00:09:18 things. Obviously that's not cool, but I don't think dressing up as something scary is intrinsically wrong. Certainly dressing up isn't intrinsically wrong. And I think it's fine to say, and I think I've shown why it's okay to say that celebrating or participating in a cultural celebration that doesn't seem to have a lot to do with that Catholic feast is okay as well. If you want to leave me your thoughts, as well. If you want to leave me your thoughts, maybe what you could do is go to pintswithaquinas.com and I will throw this up in the blog and you can leave a comment and tell me what you think. But either way, no matter what you choose to do on All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Day, I hope it's a blessed couple of days for you. Remember, All Saints Day is a holy day of obligation. So if you're a Catholic, be sure to get there. God bless, and we'll chat with you

Starting point is 00:10:09 tomorrow. It's going to be a real fun conversation. I'm going to be asking the question, you know, is the sin of certainty a sin? And I'm actually kind of responding to something that they said on Catching Foxes a couple of weeks ago. They interviewed someone from the Bad Christian podcast. It has to do with this idea that we really only have to be certain about God's existence and Christ's resurrection and everything else is sort of multiple choice. And tomorrow I'm going to share why that's ridiculous and why, you know, what Aquinas actually had to say, you know, concerning divine revelation in the Summa Contra Gentiles. You're going to love it, I hope. Big thanks to everybody who supports Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. If you like the show and you want to bless it,

Starting point is 00:10:49 please help me. Go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support, and there you can donate five bucks a month, 10 bucks a month or whatever, and you'll see the different thank you gifts I will give you in return for being such a wonderful human being. God bless. Bye.

Pints With Aquinas - 77.5 Is it okay for Christians to celebrate Halloween?

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