A Polish archbishop has cautioned that Halloween celebrations violate
Church teaching and urged Catholics not to take part “even in playful
form.”
Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski of Łódź said: “This is a fundamentally
anti-Christian festival. Parents and teachers should protect youngsters
against its images of terror and dread, especially when many already
associate it with the cult of Satan.”
Polish Catholic leaders have been trying to foster alternatives to
Halloween, which has been marked in Poland since the 1989 collapse of
communist rule.
In a pastoral letter to his archdiocese, Archbishop Jedraszewski said
Poland was “already seeing a clear reversion in the Western world, as
well as in Poland, to pagan practices.”
He said that All Saints’ Day and
All Souls’ Day had “long traditions” in Poland and were worthy
Christian occasions for “praising God and honoring those who came
before.”
“Introducing children, and sometimes adults, to Halloween practices
is a violation of church teaching. Christians should not take part, even
in playful form,” he said.
He added that, instead of celebrating Halloween, local Catholics
should commemorate up to 20,000 youngsters who died at the only Nazi
concentration camp for children, which operated in Łódź from 1942 to
1945.
A Catholic presenter with Polish Radio, Malgorzata Glabisz-Pniewska,
told Catholic News Service data suggested that Poles’ interest in
Halloween was now declining.
“Post-communist countries like ours went through a phase when
everything from the West seemed better,” she told Catholic News Service
yesterday.
“Many people dislike Halloween now, not because of any link
with Satanism, but because it’s an imported custom alien to our culture.
It would be better if the church just left it to die naturally.”