All Saints’ Day is known as a time to light candles for deceased loved ones, spend time with family, and contemplate life, but one Polish priest argues that Halloween is now destroying this traditional day.
Father Adam Anuszkiewicz, a chaplain for children from reformatories, believes that Halloween stands in complete opposite to the traditional Catholic All Saints’ Day celebrated on November 1 in Poland and other European countries.
“Today, this precious time is attacked by the antics, parties and thoughtlessness connected with Halloween. This is an issue of the war of worlds: thought versus thoughtlessness, reflection against mindless fun,” claims Anuszkiewicz. He further said that Halloween has been successful in getting people to forget that they live to be redeemed and not simply to have fun.
All Saints’ Day also typically features special time with one’s family that a holiday like the U.S.’s Thanksgiving offers, allowing people to gather together to bond and give thanks. But Halloween has only grown in importance over the decades and now threatens to totally eclipse All Saints’ Day.
Father Anuszkiewicz says that this traditional family bonding and the spiritual joy that contemplation offers is giving way to a holiday that is designed to harm the spirit, especially for children. The priest argues that children are introduced to “a world of demons under the guise of harmless fun” during Halloween and that they are being accustomed to a repulsiveness that harms the soul.
“I don’t want to demonize everything, because not every form of fun is the reason for humanity’s spiritual problems, but the type of fun Halloween offers can lead to a reality that focuses on the ghastly and vile at the expense of love and family,” Anuszkiewicz said. “It is about celebrating a horrible and ghastly world beyond ours where humans no longer reside under God’s protection.”
Father Anuszkiewicz underlined that Halloween is just one cultural element amongst many that move children to see the world in a darker manner, pushing them to lose faith in a world that seems to offer little hope or redemption.
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