The Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, recalled the Christian origin of Halloween, which is celebrated this October 31, and explained its close relationship with the eve of the Solemnity of All Saints on November 1.
“Today is All Hallows Evewhich was shortened to Halloween. Because? Because tomorrow, November 1, which begins at sunset today, is All Saints’ Day,” the American cardinal explained in a video published on his Facebook account. X.
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The cardinal said that Hallows It is a word that means “holy people” or saints and, like Halloween, there are other holidays of “secular culture” that also have a Christian origin, such as Valentine’s Day. “We can’t forget that.”
“And so it is tonight,” Cardinal Dolan concluded, “because originally people dressed like the saints, like our ancestors in the faith, and from there came the custom of dressing up on Halloween, so Happy Halloween to all!”.
in his book The dark charm of Halloween Father Francesco Bamonte, vice president of the International Association of Exorcists (IAE), explains that in the “process of Christianization of the British Isles, the solemnity of All Saints’ Day prevailed and the community celebration preserved only some of the ancient customs, orienting ourselves towards a new perspective”.
However, the consumerist reinterpretation of the festival of Celtic origin in the United States emptied it of its faith content, allowing it to become “rooted in magic, horror and death, unlike Christianity”; in addition to being “linked to dark and shadowy realities such as witchcraft and Satanism.”
Alberto Castaldini, co-author of the book and spokesperson for the IEA, explained to ACI Prensa that you can participate with children in Holywins (holiness wins) by dressing the children up as saints and explaining to them the importance of the Church feast on November 1st.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.