You're no fun

Is there anything that Donohue does like?  I seriously doubt it. 

Exorcists???????????  People really believe that???.....and they are worried about Hallowe'en??  Wow......talk about disconnect......... 

I like this article better:

http://www.beliefnet.com/Fa... 

their worries only add to the mystic and makke people want to celebrate it even more..in this case the less said the better..makes em look foolish ..i do think a few of their costume ideas were a bit over the top..bloody nurses carrying vaccum cleaners?..and then they get mad about priests with erections??? ones no more appropriate than the other...

Not to mention this one, which I wrote years ago...

By LEONEL MARTINEZ
Contributing columnist

One of my son’s classmates told him last week that he shouldn’t celebrate Halloween because it’s Satan’s birthday. In a sure sign that skepticism is inherited, my son chuckled as he told me the story.

He knows that for the last several years, those of us who love Halloween have been increasingly bombarded by stories claiming that it’s is an evil holiday that honors the forces of darkness. The critics say it’s dangerous for church-goers – including Catholics like me - to celebrate it. 

The stories – most told by well-meaning friends and acquaintances – claim that Halloween is primarily a pagan rite or that it originated with witches or Satanists who still conduct dark and loathsome rituals in the dead of the night. I’ve even heard of sermons and religious tracts that warn followers not to have anything to do with the holiday. It’s gotten to the point that many of my friends who take their kids trick or treating don’t talk about it out loud lest others brand them religiously impure.

To be sure, the stories about how bad Halloween is are all interesting, like a late-night movie on the SciFi Channel.

But none of them are true.

I’m a firm believer in religious tolerance. I’ve visited churches and synagogues, Sikh and Hindu temples. People who don’t feel comfortable celebrating Halloween shouldn’t celebrate it, and they have my full respect. But the contention that the holiday has diabolical origins ignores the facts of history.

It’s true that the ancient Celts of Britain and Ireland celebrated a festival called Samhain (pronounced sow-in) on October 31. The day commemorated the end of summer and the harvest and the start of the dark, cold winter. The Celts started their new year on Nov. 1 and believed that at that time, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became thin, and the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. To celebrate this event, these fun-loving guys built bonfires, offered animal and plant sacrifices, dressed in costumes of animals’ heads and skins and attempted to predict the future.

That’s all fine Creature Feature stuff to tell your kids one dark night at a campout, but the real reason Halloween wound up on October 31 was an undeniably Christian one. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints Day, a time to honor the saints and martyrs. It is widely believed that the good pope picked Nov. 1 to replace the Celts’ rowdy festival with a more wholesome holiday that was approved by the church.

Since Nov. 1 was known as All Hallows, the evening before became All Hallows Even, shortened to Halloween. 

The other Halloween traditions, including dressing up in costumes, making jack-o’-lanterns, and going trick or treating, were brought to the United States from the immigrants of several different countries and combined here to form the American Halloween tradition.

But Halloween should be discarded because it has some pagan roots, you say. Well, in that case, we also have to toss out Christmas, which is probably celebrated Dec. 25 to replace the Roman Saturnalia celebration, and Easter, whose bunnies, eggs and lilies are obviously pagan fertility symbols. That doesn’t even take into account the months of the year, some of which, like August, were named after Roman emperors and deities.

OK, so maybe Halloween isn’t evil, you may argue, but it’s still dangerous because things get rowdy that night in the mean city. In some places, I guess that’s true, but I’d be more worried about my kids going out on holidays like New Year’s Day, when drunks abound on city streets. And anyway, people are nuts if they send their young children trick-or-treating without adult supervision 

A couple of years ago, the priest at our church told the kids during mass not to buy into the negative hype about Halloween. Then, surrounded by the statues of the saints we would honor the next day, he called them up to front of the church and gave them their first Halloween treat.

Thanks, Father.

My children won’t be kids forever, but this year at least, we’re going trick or treating.

Leonel Martinez is a former reporter for The Californian. His column appears every other Saturday. Readers may send comments or suggestions to lmartinez@bakersfield.com or leave a voicemail at 395-7631.

Well written, Elinem.  :)

Thanks, AD.

There are a lot of important issues for us to worry about, but a kid dressed in a Dracula costume isn't one of them.

I was thinking about writing about Samhain myself, but it would be rushed and slightly redundant, since my most recent post touches upon it.

Happy Halloween to you, and for me, I plan a very special Samhain.

Interesting link Sioux.

As with any celebration, Halloween has different meanings for different people.  For most people it's an opportunity for having fun.

Kids need opportunities to be "just"  kids.  They don't need to know that the economy is in the toilet or that health care reform has divided our country along political lines.  Dressing up for Halloween gives them a chance to express their creative side and their individuality.

Unfortunately,  teens (and adults) occasionally use Halloween as an opportunity to shock people with vulgarity or inappropriate themes.  But those are the same attention seekers we see in everyday life.  No surprise there!

As for me, I love handing out candy on Halloween night and try to give positive comments to all the kids who come to my door.   I tell each and every one of them how clever and unusual their costumes are.  LOL.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a safe Halloween. 

Does this mean Pax won't trick-or-treat this year?

I think he's going to dress as Joe Wilson and greet trick or treaters at the door by shouting, "You lie!"

A few years ago I dressed up and made myself up for Halloween for when the trick-or-treaters would come to the door.  I looked perfectly hideous.  My black, black eyeliner and almost white lips, with some lipstick "dribbled" down my chin really made me scare my own self looking in the mirror.  The funny thing was that the kids coming to the door didn't seem to notice it!!!  I tell myself they were only interested in the candy, and not who was giving it out. 

In my neighborhood most of the parents go along with their children, especially the younger ones, but not ONE of those people ever said one peep. 

So now I answer the door as myself and scare the bejabbers out of them.  BOO!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I hung a leaf from a string and tied it around my forehead, then blew - I was a leaf blower.

A Mormon friend of mine recently had a demon cast out of him at his church. Unfortunately he is still the same man. :-)

Halloween in the second highest grossing holiday in America. It may have in it's roots practices from other long gone cultures( see incorporation of a cultures practices until they assimilate into the church/conqueror culture) but "satan" has nothing to do with the occasion.

Happy candy grab night children! Enjoy and be safe.

Perhaps Elinem has never heard of the Black (or Satanic) Mass, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence or other such examples that would illustrate that Halloween has gotten a bit out of hand and perhaps isn' any longer the Christian festival he deludes himself to be.

Perhaps the media is demonizing the Vatican by making it seem like it is demonizing Halloween, but there can be no mistake that there are two camps emerging over this dilemma, as one priest puts it that shows which one Elinem is in and which one I am in: http://blog.adw.org/2009/10...

Anyway, if I were going to dress up, it'd not be as Joe Wilson, but as Alan Grayson: http://www.fairtax.org/imag...

Indeed it is the season of the witch, what with Wicca on the rise and the Witch School, with a quarter-million enrollees in its online course, moving from Illinois to Salem, of all places: http://www.abcnews.go.com/p...

That's not to say I'm itching to bring back the old days of burning some witches at the stake, but can some of the witches say the same? Certainly not the ones who promote the sacrifice of human beings: http://www.forerunner.com/c...

Or worse, eating their own mother's heart: http://www.modernghana.com/...

Guess it's just a few rotten apples spoiling the whole barrel of "good witches," eh? http://www.post-gazette.com...

When I think about Halloween I remember Apostle Paul's letter to the church at Rome, chapter 14.

Each day is what we make of it.  If my faith could be shaken by knowing that a few rebellious people choose a day for evil purposes, I would not have much faith.

As Christians, we have power over what any one day means to us.  Many Christians have Harvest Parties as an alternative to Halloween.  We have that power of choice as a body of believers.  My faith is strong enough to live my life as a witness and not a bully.

If we are living in the end times prophesied in Revelation, and this is very possible, it is more important than ever to live our own lives in a way that draws people to Christ, and not as bullies that push people away from Christ.

 Witch school???   Sign me up..........sounds interesting!   Man, if we could just get past all of the "religious" beliefs, we might be able to have a whole bunch of fun holidays! 

I saw this on THE OFFICE on Thursday night.

Write the word book across your face.   like this....... B O  (nose)  O K.

You're going as facebook.

Dude, what's your problem?  It's just Halloween.

I'll be at your house tonight trick-or-treating with my five-month-old granddaughter, Pax. She'll be dressed as a dinosaur, obviously a sinister attempt to mock biblical literalists and their belief in Genesis as history. 

What time should I arrive?

Nicely said, Berean; thank you for being one of the many good apples, true spirit-filled believers who know that the slanderous words of bad apples are condemned in the exact same Bible passage (1 Cor. 6:9-10) that is often used to exclude gays and lesbians from heaven.  (I am not trying to start a debate with you, only mention that there is more than homosexuality mentioned in that well-known verse.)

Mushy praise now aside, I am a Witch, and this festive day is a Harvest celebration for me as well.  Samhain, the third harvest - with sincere respect to your faith - to change it from Halloween to Harvest leaves it still very Pagan.  :)

No offense taken, Apollodawn.  Thanks for the kind words.

The Pilgrims had a hand in bringing harvest festivals to America, which is called Thanksgiving.  This Christian form of harvest festival makes it a Christian alternative to what many of us believe are the occult overtones of Halloween.

ApolloDawn, regarding slanderers, are you talking about folks like the "Octomom" who dressed up like a pregnant nun? http://extremecatholic.blog...

Berean, you are right about Thanksgiving; the cycles of the earth belong to everyone, not just Pagans.  Celebrate the harvest as your conscience dictates.  :)

"Harvest" caught my eye because some of the more strictly observant Christians shun Easter for some of its Pagan symbolism, and celebrate it as Resurrection Day instead.  (I then made the connection between the Harvest and my own Sabbats.)  I take no offense; your spirituality belongs to you and what your conscience sees best.

I don't approve of anyone's faith being mocked, whether it's mockeries of priests, nuns, or of Jesus on the cross.