Facts On ---- Halloween -- Chapter Three

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How does Halloween relate historically to the Catholic Church, the dead, and purgatory?

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   In the middle ages the Catholic Church attempted to oppose the paganism involved in the Samhain festival by marking November the first as All Saints Day and November the second All Soul's Day. As noted, All Saints Day was a celebration of the Saints, especially the ones that were martyrs. All Souls Day became a day to pray for the dead and to help them escape the torments of purgatory.
   On May 13 in the year 609 or 610, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Roman Pantheon to the Virgin Mary and all the Christians martyrs. In 835 Pope Gregory IV transferred the feast of All Saints to November 1 and extended it to include all the saints. So November 1, All Saint's day, the day after Halloween (Hallows eve or all Saint's Eve), became a day dedicated by the Catholic Church to the Virgin Mary and the saints. Eventually, November 2 became All Soul's Day as a special day to pray for the dead. As we will see, this custom originated with a supernatural vision of the Catholic Saint Odilo, who died in 1048.
   Reminiscent of the ancient Druids, the Catholic Church still teaches that the living may, through various acts, alleviate the sufferings of the dead. They may pray for the souls being tormented in purgatory and ease their pains through specific or sacrificial acts such as penance, partaking of the Sacraments, mortification, using the Rosary, and good deeds like almsgiving. Prayers are especially to be said to the Virgin Mary, who is believed to have power to release the suffering from purgatory. (This Catholic concept of purgatory also has many parallels in other religions, but the idea is neither biblical nor Christian. The distressing consequences of this false belief are illustrated in books like Fr. F.X. Shouppe, Purgatory: Explained by the lives and Legends of the Saints.)
   The Catholic Saint Odilo was Abbot of Clugny. He has a vision, perhaps like many Catholic saints or mystics, of souls suffering terribly in purgatory. This vision inspired him to have special masses said on their behalf in all the churches affiliated with Clugny and the practice soon spread. As an article in U.S. Catholic observes, "By the end of the 13th century, All Soul's Day on November 2nd had become a set feast day to pray for our dead throughout the Latin church." The article points out that Halloween, All Saint's Day, and All Soul's Day are days to concentrate on, in this order: sin, sanctification, and the dead.

And on November 2, All Soul's Day, lets hope some people will go to the cemetery or to a church and pray for us, their dead. Halloween, All Saint's Day, All Soul's Day - October 31st, November 1st, November 2nd - all are feast days and All Saint's Day is a holy day of obligation. We must admit that we are sinners, that we are obliged to honor the saints and are called to be saints ourselves, and that it is our duty to remember our dead, the faithful departed.

   As noted, the ancient Druids believed in a purgatory - like concept: "The Celts believed that the sinful souls of those who had died during the year had been relegated to the bodies of animals. Through gifts and sacrifices their sins could be expiated and the souls freed to claim a heavenly reward. Samhain judged the souls and decreed in what form their existence was to continue, whether in the body of a human being or in an animal." Let's consider other historic and contemporary examples of how Halloween and purgatory are related.
   In the late 1800s, it was customary for English Catholics to assemble at midnight on Halloween and pray for the souls of their departed friends. "The custom was observed in every Catholic farm in the district, but was gradually given up." One individual reported in November 1909 that his grandfather would light a bundle of Straw and throw it into the air with his pitchfork; short prayers were said while the straw was lit and thrown. When asked about it "my grandfather replied that it was to represent the holy souls escaping from Purgatory to Heaven."
   On November 2 in Belgium, people eat special "All Soul's" cake because, supposedly, "the more cakes you eat on this night, the more souls you can save from Purgatory." "In Sicily, All Soul's Days, cakes with images of skulls and skeletons are eaten." A popular Halloween song in the Philippines goes, "...ordinary souls we are, from Purgatory we have come. And there we are duty-bound to pray by night and day. If alms you are to give, be in a hurry please for the door of heaven may close on us forever." In France, All Soul's Day (Le Jour des Morts) is dedicated to prayers for the dead who are not yet glorified."
   Ruth Hutchison and Ruth Adams report that in earlier times people took special bread called "souls" to the cemeteries, placing it on graves. The people ate these "soul cakes" because they were thought to be a powerful antidote against any flames of purgatory "that night be invoked by returning ghosts. At dusk the festival changed from All Saint's Day to All Soul's Eve. Lighted candles were placed on graves and in windows, to guide the dead back home." In the Middle Ages on All Soul's Day, the poor would go begging for soul cakes which could be given as payment for prayers they had promised to say for the dead.
   These examples illustrate how Halloween is related both to ancient Celtic practice and the Catholic concept of purgatory. Significantly, the Lutheran Church observes October 31, or the Sunday nearest it, as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. In Martin Luther's time, the corrupt practice of buying indulgences for the dead "suffering in purgatory" was common. Appropriately, in 1517, Luther nailed his 95 theses, which attacked the concept of selling indulgences, on the Castle Church door (in Wittenberg, Germany) on Halloween day itself.

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Taken from The Facts On Halloween, by, John Ankerberg and John Weldon
Published by Harvest House