A Rant, Because It's My Blog - For Crying Out Loud Catholics, Celebrate Halloween!

I'm not sure when this trend started, I remember it beginning at least a decade ago, or perhaps a little before, this apparent aversion Catholics have to Halloween.  I should say the aversion that seems to be present among some circles of Catholics, an almost fundamentalist approach to what is essentially a Catholic holiday.  Instead of the traditional costumes and images of ghouls and goblins, we have to dress children up in saintly costumes, and call the day "All Saints' Eve".  Even though the term "All Hallows' Eve" means precisely the same thing.  I remember during my highschool years, the first "All Saints" party held in my home parish, where ghoulish costumes were verboten, and only saintly attire was permitted.  I also remember one occasion during my university days when I was visiting one of my favourite Christian bookstores on October 31st, and a delivery man had just dropped off a shipment to the young woman working the checkout counter.  As he was about to depart he wished her a "Happy Halloween", and in a very indignant fashion she responded, "I'm Catholic, I don't celebrate Halloween, I celebrate All Saints' Day."  I'm sorry but, give me a break! 

Halloween is as Catholic a day as they come.  It originated in Irish popular piety as a day to recall the reality of Hell.  Thus, Halloween is, say it with me now: SUPPOSED TO BE SCARY.  It is a day to remember the sad fate of the souls of the damned, and that Hell is a real possibility for all of us, unless we strive to enter by the narrow door.  The earliest celebrations of "All Hallows" began in the 300s, but was celebrated in May, on May 13th in fact, the day it is still observed in some Eastern Churches.  It was transferred to November 1st in 844 when Pope Gregory III consecrated a chapel in St. Peter's Basilica to All Saints.  It has NOTHING TO DO with a druid harvest festival.  There is no agreement among scholars that the pope consciously transferred the feast to "baptize" the pagan festival of Samhain, and the idea that the pope would transfer a feast of the Universal Church for the sake of a small group of pagans at the edge of the world seems to me to be rather far fetched.  The appropriation of Halloween by pagans is a modern innovation, not extending any further back than the late 19th century. 

It is quite true that the celebration of Halloween has become as much secularized as many other Christian feasts, Christmas being chief among them, and so dressing up children in secular costumes like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga, frightening as that may be, is not the true intention of Halloween either.  But to dress children up as saints for this day also misses the entire point of this particular observance.  We honour the saints tomorrow on November 1st, we remember the souls in Purgatory the following day on November 2nd, but this day, October 31st is to remind us that there is a third possibility for us after we die, one we should avoid at all costs.  

I'm going to step out on a limb here, I hope you'll join me, I'm going to suggest that ignoring the true heritage of Halloween plays right into the Modernist ideals that have infected the Church over the past decades.  Today we only talk about heaven, a great many Catholics don't even have a concept of Purgatory or the need to pray for the dead any more.  The generally accepted idea is that when we die, we all go up to heaven, no stops along the way, and you really don't even need to be that holy, as long as you're a good enough person, it's a free pass right upstairs.  This is totally at odds with Sacred Tradition and the teaching of Our Lord in Sacred Scripture.  Nonetheless, good Catholics seem to be playing right along, and ignoring the teachings of our Church on the Last Things.  Halloween is not about the saints, that is for tomorrow, today is a day to remind ourselves, and catechize our children, that Hell is a reality, and it is something we need to strive to avoid by living lives that are truly Holy!

Further reading:
http://www.zenit.org/article-35858?l=english
http://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost12aa.html
http://www.wordonfire.org/WoF-Blog/WoF-Blog/October-2012/Culture--Time-for-Catholics-to-Embrace-Halloween.aspx
 

The Year of Faith Begins

Today inaugurates the Year of Faith called for by Pope Benedict.  It also marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962.  It's often said that the Church works in centuries, so we just have 50 more years to go until the Council is properly understood and properly implemented, right?  Perhaps.  Of course at this point in the Church there still rages the debates of the proper interpretation of the Council, with those on one side arguing for the "spirit" of the Council to be held in higher regard than the actual words of the documents.  On the other we have those who would even doubt the validity of the Council.  The truth as it always is, is of course somewhere in the middle.  Unless one has one's head in the sand, it's not hard to see that the process of change and growth in understanding of the Council is still ongoing.  Many younger clergy, religious, and laity are studying the documents thoroughly, through the lense of "continuity" as our Holy Father has called for, and working for a balanced understanding of the Council; working to correct many of the extreme responses (on both sides) that have taken place over the last 50 years (though I must acknowledge, the majority of the extreme responses do seem to have been to one direction over the other).  We pray that this ongoing process of renewal continues, under the inspiration and prayers of Blessed Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict.

As depicted above, the CCCB has issued a pastoral letter marking this auspicious occasion entitled, The Second Vatican Council: What was it and why is it important today?  The article on the document can be found here, and the document itself can be found here.  I'd like to offer some of my thoughts on this pastoral letter.  First of all, my kudos to the authors of the document for many of the fine points it makes, especially with regard to the proper interpretation of the Council:

"We see good fruit, however, where the Council is understood properly. This has been strongly emphasized by Pope Benedict XVI, who has pointed out that Vatican II, rather than being an event of 'discontinuity and rupture' with the Church before the Council, is to be viewed in continuity with the Church before it. It was not a break, but an act of reform. For this reason, we do not reject what came before the Council as being outdated, nor do we consider all that came after as inconsistent with the Church’s Tradition.  Moreover, we cannot appeal to the 'spirit' of the Council as if this were opposed to the 'letter' of the Council’s documents. The Church that existed before Vatican II is the same Church we belong to today. Yet it is also true that things did change after the Council."

"Rather than making the Church worldly or 'modern,' the Council’s job was something else entirely: it was 'to overcome erroneous or superfluous contradictions in order to present to our world the requirement of the Gospel in its full greatness  and purity.'"

The letter describes what a Council is, and a bit of the background to why Blessed Pope John XXIII called the Council in the first place.  My critique of this letter comes though in what is has to say, or doesn't say about the four Constitutions of the Council.  The paragraph on the Liturgy, I think, sadly misses the mark.  It does speak about some concerns with the liturgy before the Council, such as a lack of understanding of Latin by the laity (which is easily resolved through the use of a bilingual hand missal), and the hurried celebration by many priests (a genuine problem, but not the worst liturgical abuse out there, especially considering what came after the Council).  As always it emphasizes the "full, conscious, and active participation" of the laity, but fails to explain that this paragraph is to be interpreted primarily as interior participation, not exterior.  This paragraph also extols the near universal use of the vernacular, something not called for in Sacrosanctum Concilium.  Finally the paragraph seems to point out that the liturgy is a constantly changing thing, perhaps to justify the liturgical changes since the Council.  It fails to note however, that for 1500 years any structural changes to the liturgy were relatively minor, and the wholesale recreation of the liturgy following the Council is not called for in any of the documents.

As for images of the Church, triumphalism is bad, but I'd take a little triumphalism over the mistaken notion that so many Catholics have today, that the Catholic faith is just one among many.  With respect to the Universal Call to Holiness, it is true that some before the Council didn't understand this notion, but this idea did not begin with Vatican II, it is present in the preaching of saints down through the centuries even into the 20th century itself (it's a central feature of the preaching of St. Josemaria Escriva for one).  As for the paragraph on Salvation, again it seems to imply that the understanding that non-Christian religions have some value for evangelization was a brand new idea at Vatican II.  Someone might want to tell that to those who evangelized Asia and used their native religions and the truths found therein as their starting point.

There is much more that I could critique, but this article is getting too long already.  Once again I'd like to offer grateful thanks for the emphasis on the fact that we must understand the Second Vatican Council in light of the 1900 years that went before it.  Sadly though, the first part of the document seems largely to follow the theme that the Church began in 1962 with all of these new ideas, and so seems to contridict the latter half.  On the whole, worth a read as we begin this year of faith, but it should be an invitation to read the documents themselves and see what the Council really had to say.

Pastoral Letter on Freedom of Conscience and Religion

Yesterday the Canadian Bishops issued their new Pastoral Letter on Freedom of Conscience and Religion.  It makes a number of charitable but forceful points about the need for the free exercise of religion, in both the private and public spheres, and even gives a fervorino at the end about the need for bold courage in the face of persecution.  Some excerpts:

"Recent international and national events present a disturbing trend of threats to freedom of conscience and religion  experienced by those who suffer from bias, prejudice, hate propaganda, discrimination and persecution because of their  religious beliefs."

"Conscience is not, however, an absolute placed above truth. Rather, by its very nature, conscience has a relation to objective truth, a truth which is universal and which all must seek."

"Believers must therefore be allowed to play their part in formulating public policy and in contributing to society as a way of living their faith in daily practice. When this right is truly acknowledged, religious communities and institutions can operate freely for the betterment of society through initiatives in the social, charitable, health care, and educational sectors, which benefit all citizens, especially the poorest and most marginalized."

"In the past decade in Canada there have been several situations that raise the question whether our right to freedom of conscience and religion is everywhere respected."

"We all need to be vigilant in preserving, in a respectful manner, the religious symbols and  celebrations which express the particular spiritual heritage of nations shaped in the crucible of Christianity. Forcing religious believers to keep their convictions to themselves, while
atheists and agnostics are under no such restriction is, in fact, an expression of religious intolerance."

"Those who refuse to cooperate with an unjust law or practice that would oblige them to act against their conscience – and are not given the right to conscientious objection or accorded respectful accommodation – must be prepared to suffer the consequences that result from fidelity to Christ."

Read the rest there.

Masculine Liturgy & The Church Militant

A follow-up video from Mr. Voris.  While I don't always agree with Mr. Voris' approach, on this subject he is right on.

Is D&P worth donating to? You decide

Fr. Raymond de Souza, the National Post's priest commentator, in an article in the Catholic Register questions whether it is worth donating to Development and Peace, the Canadian Bishop's Social Justice arm, beleaguered by numerous recent scandals.

"CCODP has a tenuous claim on Catholic dollars because, aside from fundraising in Catholic parishes, they have a tenuous relationship with any distinctively Catholic mission... It’s a prudential judgment about whether a particular organization is an effective means of carrying out the corporal works of mercy, advancing the cause of liberty and justice, and contributing to the common good. As a commentator, I have given my judgment in light of recent controversies. The pastors of the Church have a different collective judgment."

Read the full article here, and you decide.

What's Old is New Again!

All I can say is, amen!