Halloween mocks the devil we deny—until faith’s sanctuaries bleed. Reclaim the eve: turn fear to faith, darkness to light
Newsroom (31/10/2025, Gaudium Press ) In an era of secular smugness, ours stands alone in human history: a culture that ridicules the devil while insisting he’s a fairy tale. Every October 31, we don the masks of the damned, parade skeletons through suburbs, and binge on gore-fueled spectacles—all under the guise of harmless fun. Then, when real horror erupts, we feign shock, as if the boundary between costume and catastrophe hadn’t been eroded by our own hands. Halloween isn’t just a holiday; it’s a ritual confession from a faithless society that secretly craves the supernatural—yet picks the wrong side to worship. Saints discarded, we settle for skulls.
This isn’t abstract philosophy. It’s playing out in blood. Over the past year, sanctuaries have turned into slaughterhouses. At Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, a gunman stormed a children’s Mass, gunning down two young students and wounding more than a dozen innocents. In Michigan, a deranged driver plowed his truck into a Latter-day Saints chapel, unleashed gunfire on worshippers, and torched the building—leaving four dead and eight maimed. And then there’s Charlie Kirk, the unapologetic Christian warrior who broadcast his faith without fear, brutally slain in a targeted assassination. His death underscores a grim truth: proclaiming Christ in the public square now invites a bullseye.
These aren’t isolated tragedies; they’re symptoms of a deepening war on belief. We’re not just morally adrift—we’re openly hostile to the sacred. A society that giggles at evil shouldn’t be stunned when evil giggles last.
Is there a link between our Halloween revelry and this rising antagonism toward faith? Direct causation? Absurd—no pumpkin spice latte sparks a spree killing. But to deny cultural complicity is willful blindness. By turning darkness into entertainment, we numb ourselves to its fangs. Horror films rack up billions; costumes glorify decapitation and decay. We’ve gamified the demonic, then act bewildered when the game turns real.
C.S. Lewis nailed it in The Screwtape Letters: The devil, that proud spirit, “cannot endure to be mocked.” But that presumes God dwells within. Strip away faith, and the inverse holds: Mockery becomes invitation. When Satan’s a punchline, he sheds the shadows and struts openly. Our chuckles? His perfect disguise.
What started as childish pranks has metastasized into a $13 billion industry of death worship. Homes swathed in cobwebs, front yards mocked up as graveyards, gore glorified to grotesque extremes—we brand it “fun.” And yes, it is fun. That’s the trap.
Contrast this with Halloween’s origins. All Hallows’ Eve was no dalliance with the dark; it was a beacon of light, the vigil before All Saints’ Day in the ancient Allhallowtide triduum. Christians pondered the Communion of Saints: the Triumphant in heaven, the Suffering in purgatory, the Militant on earth—bound in Christ’s victory. Death stared down, defanged: “O death, where is thy sting?”
Today’s obsession with the macabre betrays a twisted nostalgia. Yet herein lies hope: Beneath the plastic fangs and fog machines pulses a primal ache for transcendence. The kid in zombie makeup isn’t just playacting; he’s groping for mystery, affirming—however clumsily—that life exceeds atoms in a void. There is spirit.
Catholics, then, shouldn’t boycott Halloween; they should baptize it. The Church excels at redemption—witness Rome’s Pantheon, pagan temple turned shrine to Mary and martyrs by Pope Boniface IV in 609. Christ transfigured water to wine; we can reclaim this night.
Start with catechesis. Saint costumes are sweet, but a skeleton-clad child can learn holiness: Bones as sacred relics, harbingers of resurrection. Teach the razor’s edge between whimsy and wickedness—play mustn’t slide into permission. Evil thrives not in fantasy but in the will that yields.
Reclaim, don’t cancel. Let the jack-o’-lantern’s flame symbolize grace igniting the soul. Turn graveyard strolls into memento mori. Trick-or-treaters at the door? Christ knocking, incognito. Even scared giggles in the dark can hymn the Te Deum: “We praise Thee, O God.” Defying fear with a smirk is faith’s quiet rebellion: I will not fear, for Thou art with me.
In a culture mocking the devil into existence, let’s mock him back—with light that exposes, not laughter that emboldens. Halloween redeemed isn’t retreat; it’s conquest. The saints await their eve.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crisis
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