{"id":4882,"date":"2006-10-31T13:40:30","date_gmt":"2006-10-31T13:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/one-more-halloween-note.html"},"modified":"2006-10-31T13:40:30","modified_gmt":"2006-10-31T13:40:30","slug":"one-more-halloween-note","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/one-more-halloween-note.html","title":{"rendered":"One more Halloween note"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Beliefnet, via Catholic Parent, from our favorite Dominican historian teaching at UVA, Fr. Augustinte Thompson, O.P.<\/a><\/p>\n

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We\u2019ve all heard the allegations: Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. If you let your kids go trick-or-treating, they will be worshiping the devil and pagan gods. <\/p>\n

Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American. Halloween falls on October 31 because of a pope, and its observances are the result of medieval Catholic piety.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that the ancient Celts of Ireland and Britain celebrated a minor festival on October 31–as they did on the last day of most other months of the year. However, Halloween falls on the last day of October because the Feast of All Saints, or "All Hallows," falls on November 1. The feast in honor of all the saints in heaven used to be celebrated on May 13, but Pope Gregory III (d. 741) moved it to November 1, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter\u2019s at Rome. Later, in the 840s, Pope Gregory IV commanded that All Saints be observed everywhere. And so the holy day spread to Ireland.<\/p>\n

The day before was the feast\u2019s evening vigil, "All Hallows Even," or "Hallowe\u2019en." In those days Halloween didn\u2019t have any special significance for Christians or for long-dead Celtic pagans.<\/p>\n

In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in southern France, added a celebration on November 2. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. This feast, called All Souls Day, spread from France to the rest of Europe.<\/p>\n

So now the Church had feasts for all those in heaven and all those in purgatory. What about those in the other place? <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

More<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Citirs_1\"<\/a> Fr. Thompson is the author of Cities of God: Religion of the Italian Communues 1125-1325<\/em><\/a>, a book honored by the American Catholic Historical Association.<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Beliefnet, via Catholic Parent, from our favorite Dominican historian teaching at UVA, Fr. Augustinte Thompson, O.P. We\u2019ve all heard the allegations: Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. 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She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}