“The dark allure of Halloween” (The dark charm of Halloween) is the title of the new book launched by the International Association of Exorcists (AIE), written by its vice president, Fr. Francesco Bamonte, with Alberto Castaldini spokesperson for the institution.
In the book presentation of questions and answers, for now only in Italian, Father Bamonte specifies that Halloween is not “a playful and innocent festival or a secular occasion”, but “in reality, it is the representation of a pagan religious celebration: the Samhain festival originating from the Celtic world.”
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In this festival, “on the nights between the end of October and the beginning of November, in addition to numerous magical rites, sacrifices of animals and, in all probability, even human beings were performed.”
The priest warns that the consumerist reinterpretation of the Celtic festival in the United States emptied it of its content and allowed it to become “rooted in magic, horror and death, unlike Christianity”; in addition to seeing itself “today closely linked to dark and shadowy realities such as witchcraft and Satanism.”
The exorcist also highlights that it marks, for Satanists, the beginning of the satanic year, which makes it more dangerous. Although those who celebrate it “have no intention of celebrating witchcraft and the devil,” they put themselves “in communion with this evil spiritual current” and become “more vulnerable to the ordinary and extraordinary actions” of the devil.
The priest warns that some children’s websites offer links to pages of Satanism; and remember that on Halloween “acts of blasphemy and sacrilege against Christian faith and symbols” proliferate, in addition to tragedies such as that in Seoul (South Korea) in 2022, when 158 people died while celebrating Halloween.
What can a Catholic do before the Halloween party?
The vice president of the IEA encourages recovering the strength of the Solemnity of All Saints on November 1, encouraging people to dress up as saints, promote their lives, hold processions and involve children, also with vigils of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
“It is advisable to explain to children and adults – on the Sundays before October 31 and, in particular, during the homily at the mass on October 31 in the afternoon and on November 1 – the communion that unites us to all the Saints. and our deceased, helping them distinguish what is harmless from what is not,” explains the Italian exorcist.
It is also important to remind everyone “how important it is for us, Catholics, to celebrate our holy brothers, whose intercession can obtain us so many graces, and to commemorate our dearly departed, who await our prayers and with whom we hope to be united a day for eternity.”
The book “The Dark Charm of Halloween” can be purchased at Pauline bookstores in Italy or in Amazon
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.