 Setting the captives free one decision at a time, welcome to Do The Harder Thing. Should the Catholics celebrate Halloween or rather, how do faithful Catholics celebrate Halloween? So really quickly, I want to get into the stuff you probably already know. This is stuff that we covered in the original discussion. You probably already know this in your own studies and in your own investigation of Halloween. Hello, right? Let's break down the word. Hello, Halloween. Hello means holy and in is a truncation of the word evening. So what does this mean? Well, and what does it have to do with the day, October 31st? Well, it is literally translated to holy evening and it's on the 31st because that's the vigil of all saints day. Right. How many of you knew that November 1st is the feast? It's a holy day of obligation. It's all saints day. Now, in terms of the time and the history of what we're talking about here, there was a pope in the eighth century who dedicated a chapel and the original Basilica of Saint Peter to all saints. And so he moved the celebration of all saints day, the dedication to the dedication day, which was November 1st. So October 31st is the vigil. Hallows Eve, the hollow holy evening. November 1st is the feast day, right? Holy day of obligation, all saints day. And then those members. Second is all souls day. So this you can find easily in the Catholic calendar of holy days or holy days of obligation, feast days. Right. All three of these days together have been referred to as all hollows tied, hollow, tied or hollow mass. November 3rd is also a part of this as well. I didn't write that down, but it's worth looking into. OK. Now, the question that always comes up and it came up when we originally discussed this is, is Halloween pagan? Someone told me that it was pagan or related to this day, blah, blah, blah. And the fact of the matter is, and we need to be perfectly clear about this. Halloween is a Catholic holiday. OK, it comes from Catholic tradition and it has zero ties to paganism. Now, there are some who try to draw a connection between the dates of a certain pagan holiday and all saints day. They seem to coincide on the same day. But as you heard, Catholics celebrate these days because of the dedication of the chapel in the 8th century. So this date ties back all the way to the 8th century and was specific to a particular celebration, a particular dedication. So that is why we have it on that day. And if anyone says, well, it coincides with this day, so it must be pagan. It's not accurate. It's not historically accurate, regardless of that. Let's just take that argument just down to the basics. Let's just say that it was in coinciding with a pagan holiday. Well, then that would mean that we as Catholics were subverting paganism and creating it and turning it into something good and holy. And that's a good thing, right? Reclaiming something or taking something that was bad and making it holy is a good thing. So had those claims been true, which they're not, it would still be a good and acceptable thing. Now, if you're interested in this a little bit more of the history, which was not what we're getting into because this show is not about apologetics or anything of that nature, Jimmy Akin has talked about this ad nauseam. You can look him up on YouTube and find out some information there. And basically, he lays out that there are no historical. There is no historical evidence to show any connection between the Catholic Halloween and paganism. Now, moving forward, you're going to hear me use the term Catholic tradition, Catholic Halloween and secular Halloween, because they're two very different things. And that's kind of what we're going to be talking about in today's show. How should a Catholic celebrate a faithful Catholic celebrate Halloween? What is that tradition? And what does that look like? So going back to the notes, OK. I believe that the secular version of the Catholic holiday is indeed pagan, just to be more clear, I believe that the secular celebration of Halloween is pagan. OK, that doesn't mean that the and I'm not claiming in any way, shape or form that the Catholic tradition, the feast day of Halloween is pagan. It's clearly not. What I'm saying is that secularism has twisted and distorted and divorced Catholic tradition from the Catholic holiday. And that's kind of what we're getting into here. How do we as faithful Catholics navigate these waters? Because if if secular culture has and I believe the argument can be made, has divorced itself from the Catholic holiday, what does that mean to the rest of us? OK, we're all aware of how dark secular Halloween has become or can be with its focus on demons, which is which is gore, horror, etc. And to be clear, and it's worth being said, there is a good version of focusing on death, right? Memento Mori, right? Look up any historical paintings or most historical paintings of saints and they have what? Skulls, Memento Mori. Remember your death, your death one day will come. This is a healthy exercise. It's it's knowing that our time on this earth is finite and we're going to have to answer for our actions, right? So there's a good and right focus on death. OK, but then there's also and of course, all saints day, which is what we're talking about, hollows Eve. But there's also the bad version of focusing on death, which is what secularism generally drives us towards, which is fearing death, fearing demons, right? Having us running scared at every bump in the night, OK, glorifying serial killers and gore, that's the secular version of focusing on death. And that is my argument in a lot of ways as to why the secular version of Halloween is problematic, but we'll get into a little of that later. So knowing this, the question becomes, how do faithful Catholics celebrate Halloween? And I think quite basically there are two answers. One is if you're an adult and you want to dress up and go to a party. Great. Have fun. As long as it doesn't violate morals or violate the faith in any way, shape or form, you're in the clear. This is, again, something Jimmy Aiken talks about, right? If you know the tradition of the holiday, the Catholic holiday, and if you're still fulfilling that holy day of obligation, November 1st, all Saints Day, what's wrong, right? My biggest complaint. Is the second part of this question, the second part of this question is a little bit more in depth is parents with children. I'm a parent, I have a daughter. These are things that I have to think about. This is where it gets more in depth. This is where we have to really kind of dive into the reality of the secular world, the way that the secular world has affected the tradition of of of Halloween, how it's kind of divorced the tradition from Halloween and navigate these waters because this is where the rubber really kind of meets the road. The first answer was the easy answer. This is a lot more in depth. OK. I should go without saying that the culture is after your kids. Evidence of this. Most recently, there was a show on Disney called the Owl House. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that. If you're not, the Owl House featured a young girl being stuck in a quote unquote demon realm befriending a demon learning witchcraft. And of course, the show on Disney, again, is rounded out by LGBT representation with a same sex leading couple. And of course, the series was awarded. This should be no surprise. The twenty twenty one Peabody Award and the award that they won was for children's and youth programming. Culture, secular culture is your enemy, and it's clearly after your kids. This is one of many examples. I had posted one a few weeks ago that was a young girl befriending a ghost. There was some weirdness there. This one, though, the Owl House is particularly egregious. I think it kind of made its rounds. A lot of people saw that they had the occult symbol with the candles. That sort of a thing. This was on Disney, and it should come as no surprise again that the creator of the show is a fallen away Catholic heavily influenced by an artist with the last name of Bosch, which in my opinion, this is my opinion that artists was possessed. You can just kind of take a look at his work and see. But again, that's my opinion. I cannot fully make that claim. Just a guess. OK. So why does that matter in regards to Halloween? Why would the falls of secular culture affect the tradition of Halloween? Well, it's kind of simple. It's what we already established earlier that secular Halloween has divorced itself from the Catholic tradition. OK, so the standard of culture is utter depravity. We are well aware of this, and it's only gotten worse over the years, right? And as parents, we are held responsible for how we raise our kids. OK, if any of you listened to the last live stream of reading Sunday sermons of St. Alphonse Legoria on educating children, this will sound familiar to you. But for those of you who missed that, Alphonse Legoria, a saint and doctor of the church, preached in one of his sermons on education of children, quote, hence origin says that the day of judgment on the day of judgment, parents shall have to render an account for all the sins of their children. End quote. He then further says, quoting St. Bernard on the importance of educating children and caring for them that, quote, they are not fathers, but murderers. They kill not the bodies, but the souls of their children. End quote. And then Alphonse himself rounds it out by saying, oh, what ruin is brought about brought about upon children by the father who teaches them these worldly maxims. OK, so what am I establishing here? I'm establishing two very important things. Number one is the responsibility of parents is serious and that the failure could result in their damnation, not just the damnation of their children that they failed, but the damnation of the parents who failed the children. And two, the world is your enemy and is targeting your kids. OK, this is this is well known. I like to quote, actually, I don't think I can say who. We're my primary day job for those who don't know. We work very closely to exorcists. And it was reported back to me at one point that a demon in one of the exorcisms said to the people in the room why they attack children because children are easy. That's what the demon said, because children are easy. Keeping that in mind, bearing those things in mind, bearing the mind, the responsibility of the parents and the fact that the world is your enemy, it's written in Scripture and secular cultures after your kids. The question is why or the question that I would posit to you is why would you celebrate secular Halloween? Right. And to the original question, then how does a faithful Catholic celebrate their tradition? This is where the notes end and it gets a little bit easier. I don't think there can be an argument that says that secular Halloween is OK. I know that Jimmy Aiken has talked about it and I love Jimmy. He makes some valid points. And what he says is right. What I'm saying is we have a responsibility to go a little bit deeper. OK, I'm not saying that Halloween should be thrown out. Of course not. As we kind of covered in the beginning of this, Halloween is a thoroughly Catholic holiday, right? It is a part of our Catholic tradition. But how you navigate those waters, that's where we have to take the step deeper, especially after reading the writings of a doctor of the church, St. Alphonse Gory, on the importance of raising children. We know that children are easily influenced. I said, I think it was last week that they are hypocrite detectors, right? How can we tell them? How can we raise them in the Catholic faith and tell them, hey, look, secular culture is bad, the world is your enemy, these sorts of things, not doom and gloom and not puritanism by any means, but teaching them the reality, the truth, right? What is good and what is evil? And then turn around and celebrate the secular version of the holiday, which more often than not, depending on where you go, but more often than not, the secular version of Halloween is, as I said, as I'm being I'm being not superfluous, but a bit. I'm going to the extremes to prove a point here, but, you know, sorority girls who are half naked and, you know, you have that one weird neighbor who's always putting up, you know, severed heads and things, gory things of that nature, right? There's a problem there. These kids are going to know, OK, well, hold on. My parent is saying one thing here about what's good. And then we're walking around the neighborhood and seeing these things and potentially scarring kids. This is somehow OK. Where's the balance there? Again, kids are hypocrite detractors, right? We can't talk out of both sides of our mouths. I'm not saying that you shouldn't take your kids trick or treating, right? And I'm not even going to get into the history. I think it was there's a priest. I can't think of his name. Forgive me, who kind of talks about the history of going door to door and what that actually stemmed from, which is fine and good and holy. I'm not getting into that. I'm not saying that you shouldn't take your kids trick or treating. What I'm saying is how do you teach your children, parents, teaching your children the importance of the Catholic tradition and keeping them protected from the secularism that divorced the tradition from the holiday? That's what I'm getting into. That's that level of depth, right? Because I want myself because I know that I have to stand before God as a teacher and a father and say, I did everything I can. I did everything I knew to do. My hands are clean, right? And whatever you judge me, I'm OK with. I don't want to go in front of God with any regrets thinking, oh, I could have done this differently. And I don't want any of you to face that same fate. I want to stand beside you and I want us all to hear well done, good and faithful servant, right? Bearing that in mind, how do we celebrate? Well, there's a lot of different ways that you can do this. There are churches that do trunk or treat, right? Which is a controlled environment where your kid is far more likely to be safe. Hopefully you already know the people who you are engaging with. They're a part of your church. There are other churches that celebrate actually the All Saints Day on the vigil, right? It's a good way to teach your kids. This is what we're talking about. Not to mention, again, going back to teaching your kids the richness of the faith, right? All Saints Day. What a beautiful thing to say, these are the saints. These are the people we are told that we should try to emulate and then get into the stories. Who are your favorite saints? And have your kid, who appeals to you out of all these saints that we talked about? Who appeals to you? And better yet, have them dress up as a saint, right? These are some amazing things in terms of dressing. So trunk or treat, right? In terms of dressing up, I think I totally agree with what Jimmy Akin says on this. Is it an issue to dress up as a superhero? Is it an issue to dress up as something quote unquote scary? No, with proper caveat. Does your child understand and can they recognize, again, now we are divorcing the secularism from the tradition, right? We are properly ordering our children towards tradition and showing them the truth and the goodness there. If they can understand and navigate those waters and you feel comfortable walking with them and saying, yeah, sure, you can dress up as Superman. Let's just make sure that we're also celebrating a holy day of obligation, not the 31st, right? But the November 1st, all saints day, then fine, that's great. There's no harm there, right? Now, what else can you do? Just to give you some more, I don't ever wanna come to you and say, this XYZ is bad, therefore, and then just leave, not give you other options. A friend of mine on here, incredible, incredible account, she was saying that her and her other Catholic families are getting together and doing a bonfire and celebrating all Hallows Eve, right? The holy evening, the vigil to all saints day together, Catholic families together. That's Catholic culture, right? And that's the entire purpose reestablishing Catholic culture, authentic Catholic culture, that's the entire purpose behind this account, right? So that's a beautiful idea. I don't ever want people to think that Catholicism is some puritanical religion that you can't have any fun or anything of that nature, not saying, you know, you can't engage in anything secular. However, in this case, I think it's very important that we do take a step back and we do look at how secular culture has already divorced tradition from this holiday and reestablished that tradition back into the celebration. That's a good thing. That's fulfillment of the faith, right? That's teaching your kids the right way, that's rightly ordered. So that's another option that you can do, gathering Catholic families, getting together, throwing a bonfire, having some sort of a party, you know, if you want to do your own version of trunk or tree, that sort of thing, that's all fine and good. So that's yet another option. I tried to look and find some more options. I didn't really find any that kind of jumped out to me that I thought were worth bringing to your attention, but I do think that the trunk or tree is solid. I do think that anything that the church has put on for the most part is solid, generally because they're focused around the coming vigil or they're focused around the coming feast day because it is the vigil all saints day. And I think that it should be noted, as I said before, kind of as a closing here, that it's okay, if you want to take your kid, trick or treating around the neighborhood, and you can explain to them, and you can keep them protected from, as I said, worst case scenario, half naked sorority girls, worst case scenario, the weird neighbor who has, you know, severed bodies in his front yard, then fine. That's fine. The point is, as a parent, you, that's why I quoted Alphonse Ligore, as a parent, you are held to a different standard, and you're going to have to answer for how you raised your children and how you taught your children. So if you can make a prudent decision and say, yeah, we can do this and everything's okay, then great, great, it's safe, right? And again, as I started, just to reiterate here, if you're an adult and you want to dress up and go to a party and you're not violating morals or the faith, then great, that's great. Again, as long as you go to the holy day of obligation on the first, you're totally fine. You're literally just living your life in terms of the faith, which is all we're supposed to do anyway. So hopefully that helps. I think there was a little bit of confusion when we had this conversation originally. Of course, the internet is not a place of nuance, it's not a place, we live in a post-rational society, so there's a lot of confusion. I hope that this is a more concise kind of understanding of the quick history and rundown of where Halloween comes from, how it's thoroughly Catholic, how it's not tied to paganism, and then into the answer of how should faithful Catholics celebrate this Catholic holiday? Because I think as simple as it was, I think it's gonna, I hope anyway, I should say, I hope that it frees a lot of people and it frees their conscious in a lot of ways from kind of navigating those waters because it's been kind of taken over, again, by secularism, which is an issue. So regardless, please be prudent, please be discerning, and please take into account not violating faith or morals as an adult, and then if you're a parent in closing, make sure that you are helping them understand the reality of the situation, making sure they're not getting into things they're not supposed to be getting into, and actually, before I close out, on that note, if I had a dollar for every message I received from somebody last week when we first talked about this, who said that they experienced their first Ouija board on Halloween hanging out at a friend's house, I would have a significant amount of money. This, again, not to jump back into it, because I know I just kind of did the closing, this, again, is another reason why we have to be so careful with holidays that are with, I should say, celebrating the secular version of these holidays. Right, if you listen back to that sermon from Alphons of the Gory, he strictly says that if you allow your kid to go to a house of repute or hang out with people who are problematic, you're gonna answer for that. And unfortunately, your kids are gonna get hurt by that as well, as was echoed by many of the messages I received regarding the Ouija boards and things of that nature. So, all of that is fine and good. In the actual podcast episode of this, this is gonna be post-produced and put on the podcast episode, I'm gonna throw in a lot of the resources that I pulled from, where I pulled the history of Halloween, you know, since Fidelium has some great rundowns of All Saints' Day, Catholic Company has a fantastic rundown of the Catholic history of Halloween, why it's not pagan, I'll add the Jimmy Akin videos because he's done a few on Halloween and why it's okay. He even goes into and talks about scary things, right? Like are scary things bad? And I agree with him on a certain point that quote-unquote scary things could not necessarily be bad. As long as, well, for instance, just really quickly here, I'm gonna butcher it, he does it much better. Again, I'll link it. He does a great job of describing a drama. A drama is not a drama without proper fear, right? Or some threat of any sort of downfall, right? The issue is, are we glorifying the bad, right? That's the question, if I was to break it down to really simple fashion, a really simple thing that you can ask yourself. Are you glorifying evil? Are you glorifying the bad, right? Is the bad winning over the good? That sort of thing, that's what he talks about. So anyway, without getting back into it, because I've already closed this show like three different times, I apologize, I have to get back on the podcasting track. It's been a while. I will link all of those in the description of the podcast.