Vatican condemns Halloween
When I was living in London 20 years ago, I was touched one Halloween when a British friend surprised me with a card to mark the holiday.
It was the first and only Halloween card I've ever received. Obviously, I didn't tell her that. She thought she was helping me to feel at home in her country by remembering a tradition from mine; why tell her that it isn't really a holiday for exchanging cards?
Since then, however, Europeans have become more familiar with Halloween. Which is why the Vatican has grown more vocal in its condemnation of the annual observance.
In an article in L'Osservatore Romano, the Holy See says Halloween is a pagan celebration of "terror, fear and death." The official Vatican paper warns parents against allowing children to dress up as ghosts and ghouls.
(We're getting this from British newspapers, because we haven't been able to find the original story at the L'Osservatore Romano Web site.)
The article, headlined “The Dangerous Messages of Halloween,” quotes liturgical expert Joan Maria Canals as saying 'Halloween has an undercurrent of occultism and is absolutely anti-Christian” and urging parents “'to be aware of this and try to direct the meaning of the feast towards wholesomeness and beauty rather than terror, fear and death.'
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Categories: Catholicism, Culture, Holidays, International, Wicca
