The Popular Festival of Halloween is Diabolical
playfully but really
The Festival Claimed by the Satanists
For many, Halloween is only a game of fear, of costumes and of sweets. The Catholic question nevertheless bears on what this celebration publicly honors and teaches children to love. Three elements command the judgment: the Satanists themselves claim Halloween among their great festivals; former practitioners recount their invocations and their sacrifices; moral theology judges the object of the acts and the scandal of the example given. Diversion does not erase these realities. They give a serious reason to refuse the celebrations that exalt the demon, banalize the occult or turn the sacred into derision. The personal responsibility of a child remains distinct from that of the organizers, and receiving a sweet does not constitute, by itself, an invocation.
The celebration of the demon must be refused even when it presents itself as an amusement. All Saints’ Day, prayer for the deceased and education to holiness give families a Catholic orientation. The documents and the personal admissions allow the reasons to be set forth without depending on uncertain historical accounts, kept in the final complement.
Table of Contents
- The Name and the History of the Festival
- The Satanist Appropriation and the Testimonies
- The Moral Judgment
- The Discipline and the Piety of the Church
- The Duty of Parents and the Replacement Activities
- Historical Complements and Transmitted Accounts
- Sources
- The Name and the History of the Festival
1.1. The Eve of All Saints’ Day and the Consecration of the Pantheon
Halloween designates the eve of All Saints’ Day: this Christian origin of the name is attested by the old Catholic Encyclopedia. A Christian name does not sanctify the practices associated with it. This origin nevertheless forbids claiming that the name and the whole history of this eve would be without relation to the Christian feast. The word, the customs that have aggregated to it and the religious meaning that some give them must be distinguished. [6]
All Saints’ Day honors the known and unknown saints. At Rome, its history includes a May celebration linked to the consecration of the Pantheon to the Mother of God and to the martyrs. Bede the Venerable reports that Boniface IV obtained the building from the emperor Phocas, purified it and consecrated it to Christian worship. The old Catholic encyclopedia indicates 13 May 609 or 610, then recalls the chapel dedicated to all the saints by Gregory III and its anniversary on 1 November. Gregory IV later extended this celebration to the whole Church. [4, 6]
The testimony of Bede is particularly significant: the demons are excluded, the place is purified, the saints receive a perpetual memory there. The Church does not juxtapose two cults. She withdraws the sanctuary from the idols to give it to the true God. This reading of the passage supplies a principle of discernment: a true Christianization changes the religious destination and makes the bad cult disappear. [4]
1.2. Samhain and the Celtic Accounts
The Irish account Tochmarc Emire, The Wooing of Emer, presents Samuin as the end of summer. Its paragraph 55 distinguishes summer, from Beltaine to Samuin, from winter, from Samuin to Beltaine; it also mentions Oimolc at the beginning of spring, Beltine with fires and incantations attributed to the druids, and Brón Trogaill at the beginning of autumn. It is an ancient attestation of seasonal representations; it does not suffice to establish the continuity of all the usages up to Halloween. [5]
The moral condemnation does not depend on the solution of all the historical questions: an invocation or a divinatory practice is judged according to its real object, even if the exact genealogy of the rite is unknown. A date does not have to be supposed intrinsically demonic for the bad practices that take place on it to be condemned.
- The Satanist Appropriation and the Testimonies
2.1. A Document of LaVey and the Declaration of His Organization
The link with Satanism rests on an explicit document. Anton Szandor LaVey writes in The Satanic Bible, in the chapter Religious Holidays: “After one’s own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht and Halloween (or All Hallows’ Eve).” Translation: “After one’s own birthday, the two principal Satanic festivals are the night of Walpurgis and Halloween, or the eve of All Saints’ Day.” [7]
The place given to Halloween is therefore certain in the Satanism set forth by LaVey. This text is more precise and more solid than the affirmation according to which Halloween would be, for all Satanists, the supreme festival: LaVey places the personal birthday first. The precision reinforces the proof by preserving its true terms.
The Church of Satan itself confirms this appropriation. In its FAQ devoted to the festivals, it sees Halloween as an occasion when the public approaches a darkness that the Satanists claim for their daily existence. It associates the macabre costumes, the games of fear and the unveiling of the hidden part of the personality. It is an explicit Satanist interpretation of the popular festival, formulated by this organization itself. Its importance does not therefore depend on the discourses of its adversaries alone. [8]
2.2. Personal Admissions Are Elements of Proof
The declarations of persons who recount their own participation in the rites deserve their full place. Acknowledging having invoked, sacrificed, turned Christian worship into derision or celebrated a demonic ceremony brings to the dossier facts otherwise more precise than a simple resemblance between symbols. It is the acts recounted, the personal knowledge of the witness and the fidelity of the transmission that matter.
The law of the Church recognizes the probative value of the admission. The Code of 1917 distinguishes the judicial admission from the extrajudicial admission; for the latter, canon 1753 asks the judge to appreciate its value by weighing all the circumstances. Canon 1751 attaches to the free and deliberate judicial admission a particular effect in private affairs that do not interest the public good. A published interview is not a trial; the probative analogy nevertheless remains enlightening: an admission is not devoid of value because it is collected outside the tribunal. [21]
The following testimonies must be read according to this distinction. The recognitions of personal facts, the accounts of victims and the general affirmations are not identical. Their publication is established; the evaluation of their scope requires neither setting them aside for lack of a police dossier, nor making each of their affirmations automatically irrefutable.
2.3. John Ramirez and His Personal Practices
In the interviews published by CBN News in 2019 and in 2021, John Ramirez presents himself as a former general of the kingdom of darkness. He declares having practiced for twenty-five years, describes exchanges with the devil and affirms that his marriage took place at Halloween in a demonic ceremony. The publication of 2019 reports his animal sacrifices; that of 2021 also mentions the animals killed and the animal blood drunk in the context of his practices. The source does not expressly situate these sacrifices in the ceremony of his marriage. [10–11]
Ramirez qualifies October as the month of witchcraft and rejects the participation of Christians in Halloween. The interest of the testimony bears first on what he says he has done and known personally: the link he describes is not a simple game of costumes. His pastoral conclusions must then be confronted with the Catholic principles set forth further on, rather than received as an independent doctrinal authority. [10–11]
2.4. Deborah Lipsky and the Mockery of All Saints’ Day
Questioned by Trent Beattie in the National Catholic Register of 31 October 2012, Deborah Lipsky presents Halloween as an important festival of her former Satanist milieu and as a derision of All Saints’ Day. Her admission bears on the reversal of the cult: “Instead of asking for the intercession of the saints, we would call upon demons and the damned.” Translation: “Instead of asking for the intercession of the saints, we invoked the demons and the damned.” [14]
This declaration describes a precise intention and act: substituting the demons and the damned for the saints. Lipsky also advises Christians against participating in it under an innocent costume, because of the environment to which they expose themselves. The testimony deserves to be heard for its personal content, without the current religious positions of the interviewee or of the journal becoming for all that the rule of our faith. [14]
2.5. Riaan Swiegelaar and the Sacrifices
Riaan Swiegelaar, former responsible of the South African Satanic Church, describes to CBN News, on 28 October 2025, the particular importance of Halloween and of blood rites. He invokes his experience of five years in Satanism and his participation in the organization of rituals, notably with animal sacrifices. He compares Christian participation in Halloween to a night with the devil and underlines the risk of habituation to demonic imagery. [12–13]
He affirms further that October would know a worldwide maximum of human sacrifices and of disappearances. This generalization exceeds his sole personal participation and is not accompanied by an independent census in the publication. The scope of this general affirmation remains distinct from that of his personal admissions. [12–13]
2.6. Jenny Weaver and the Entry into the Occult
Jenny Weaver, presented as a former practitioner of witchcraft, affirms in the interview reported by Nicole VanDyke on 31 October 2021 that the witches devote more time to their practices at Halloween. She qualifies this day as Satan’s playground and recounts their belief in a thinner separation between the terrestrial world and the demonic world. This belief is that of the practitioners she describes; it is not a truth of faith on the power of a date. Weaver refuses to dissociate the festival from its occult interpretation. [9]
Her testimony also shows what someone can seek in witchcraft: she recounts having been attracted, after a fiction film, by the prospect of taking back control of her life and of avenging herself on those who mistreated her. She nevertheless concretely illuminates the responsibility of those who present occult practices under an attractive form. [9]
2.7. The Account of Beth and That Attributed to Doreen Irvine
Christian Today, in an article by Czarina Ong of 22 October 2016, reports the blog of Beth, The Other Side of Darkness. She recounts there sexual abuses that she situates in a Satanic ritual of Halloween and presents this date as important for witches and Satanists. It is a testimony of a victim reported by this publication, and not the admission of an author of the abuses; the original post and an independent dossier of the facts have not been consulted. [15]
Doreen Irvine is also cited among the former practitioners converted. Her book Set Free to Serve Christ is identified. The transmitted account presents her as the greatest witch of Western Europe and the concubine of a high minister of Satan; it attributes to her the warning that parents knowing Halloween would not even dare to speak of it before their children. These biographical precisions and the exact formulation of the warning remain unverified in the original text. They therefore remain reported assertions, distinct from the admissions directly documented above. [20]
2.8. What the Dossier Allows to Be Sustained
These sources give a real content to the rapprochement between Halloween and Satanism: an institutional recognition, declarations on personal ceremonies, sacrifices, invocations and a mockery of All Saints’ Day. Their declarations converge on the importance accorded to Halloween and its use in occult or Satanist milieus. This convergence reinforces this point of the dossier, without establishing the identity of all the facts recounted. The testimonies must not be relegated to a decoration of the reasoning: they set forth the most grave facts, under the exact attribution of those who report them.
On the other hand, the accounts of black masses and of sacrifices situated in the United States, in France, in Ireland and elsewhere are not all localized by distinct documents. The pretension that all Satanists would make of 31 October their new year or their supreme festival is not established.
- The Moral Judgment
3.1. The Warnings of Scripture
Saint Paul commands: “et nolite communicare operibus infructuosis tenebrarum, magis autem redarguite.” Translation: “Do not take part in the sterile works of darkness; rather denounce them” (Ephesians 5, 11). He also asks: “Ab omni specie mala abstinete vos.” Translation: “Abstain from every form of evil” (First Epistle to the Thessalonians 5, 22). Deuteronomy 18, 10–12 condemns divination, enchantments and the search for a knowledge from the dead. Our Lord warns with an extreme gravity him who scandalizes one of the little ones who believe in him (Matthew 18, 6). [1]
The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 10, 20–21, refuses communion with the demons and opposes their table to that of the Lord. At verses 25–29, Saint Paul distinguishes this cultic participation from the ordinary consumption of a food sold at the market and takes into account the conscience of the neighbor. The rule is firm: no participation in demonic worship; its application requires that one identify the act and its signification. [1]
3.2. An Intention of Play Does Not Make Good a Bad Act
Diversion is the first response invoked: the children play at frightening themselves, love their disguises, their make-up and the sweets. This explains their attraction; it does not resolve the moral question. Saint Thomas distinguishes the good of the object, of the circumstances and of the end: “Non tamen est actio bona simpliciter, nisi omnes bonitates concurrant.” Translation: “However, an action is not good absolutely unless all the conditions of goodness concur” (I-II, question 18, article 4, reply to the third objection). [2]
An invocation, a true divinatory operation, a profanation or a mockery of God do not therefore become good because one wants to amuse oneself. The costume is not judged by its fabric, but by the act and the sense it serves. A representation can denounce evil; another can exalt it. The appreciation of personal fault takes into account knowledge and consent, without the ignorance of a child making good what an adult makes him accomplish.
3.3. Superstition and Recourse to Spirits
Saint Thomas distinguishes reasonable prevision from natural causes from the superstitious search for a hidden knowledge. He forbids recourse to the demons: “Unde nullo modo licet homini Daemonum auxilio uti per pacta tacita vel expressa.” Translation: “It is therefore in no way permitted to man to have recourse to the aid of the demons by tacit or express pacts” (II-II, question 96, article 2, reply to the third objection; see also question 95, articles 1–2). [3]
Thus, really consulting spirits, seeking a magical protection or a loving future by divinatory means falls under a judgment that does not depend on the success of the operation. An apple, a hazelnut, a mask or a lantern do not acquire an occult efficacy by their sole presence; it is the superstitious recourse that must be recognized and refused.
3.4. Scandal Even Without Idolatrous Intention
The motive of abstention is not limited to personal invocation. Saint Thomas examines the case of a man sitting at table in a temple of idols without corrupt intention. This conduct can give to another an occasion of fall: “quia habet quandam speciem vel similitudinem venerationis idoli, potest alteri praebere occasionem ruinae.” Translation: “Because this presents a certain appearance or resemblance with the veneration of an idol, it can give to another an occasion of fall” (II-II, question 43, article 1, reply to the second objection). [3]
The application is important: a public staging that really gives the appearance of celebrating the demons or that engages the children to imitate a forbidden practice can be scandalous even when each one does not form an idolatrous intention. Private intention does not suppress the signification of the example given. It is this signification that must be established in the concrete case; the sole appropriation of an object by Satanists does not transform all its usages into acts of worship.
The pastoral consequence can be clear: refusing a celebration that exalts the demon, ridicules the sacred or encourages the occult is a fidelity to the faith and a protection of the neighbor. This permits a firm call to abstention without attributing indistinctly to all the children the will to serve the devil.
- The Discipline and the Piety of the Church
4.1. The Penitential Character of the Vigil
The Code of 1917 expressly ranked the vigil of All Saints’ Day among the days of fasting and of abstinence (canon 1252, paragraph 2), under reserve of the exemptions, indults and dispensations. This discipline gives to the preparation of the feast a penitential character. It is opposed to the search for disorder and for excess. [21]
4.2. The Ancient Condemnations of Pagan Masquerades
Canon 1 of the Council of Auxerre forbids, for the calends of January, certain masquerades and the usages qualified as diabolical. It concerns determined pagan celebrations, and not a judgment expressly borne on Halloween. [22]
Saint Caesarius of Arles denounces, in his sermon on the calends of January, the deformations and the disguises adopted by participants, some of them baptized: “Alii vestiuntur pellibus pecudum; alii adsumunt capita bestiarum.” Translation: “Some clothe themselves with skins of beasts; others take heads of animals” (sermon 192, paragraph 2). [23]
Sermon 193 transmitted in the same collection describes more precisely still the danger of play mixed with superstition: “Per haec ille malorum artifex se intromittit, ut captis paulatim per ludorum similitudinem mentibus dominetur.” Translation: “By these means, this artisan of evils introduces himself, in order to dominate the minds progressively captivated under the appearance of the games.” The text also aims at the customs of the calends of January. It thus describes the introduction of evil under a ludic presentation. [27]
The historical analogy is useful if it keeps its object: the Church combated masquerades integrated into pagan customs. The material resemblance of a costume is not a sufficient proof; the real association with a forbidden religious practice or with scandal gives the rapprochement its force. It is therefore not necessary to make these texts say that they condemned by name a modern festival.
4.3. To Christianize Requires Changing the Cult
In his letter to Mellitus, Saint Gregory the Great orders to destroy the idols, to purify the temples and to consecrate them to the service of the true God. The ancient festive meals can be reoriented toward Christian feasts, but the animals must no longer be offered to the demons. The buildings and certain exterior usages remain; their religious destination changes. [24]
This instruction rejoins the account of Bede on the Pantheon. It supplies a criterion for a true Christianization. Conversely, effectively diverting a Christian feast toward the invocation of the demons or the derision of the saints constitutes a de-Christianization. The reversal described by Lipsky gives a precise example of it: on the eve of the feast of the saints, her milieu substituted for their intercession the invocation of the demons and the damned. This practice effectively de-Christianizes a Christian eve. This rapprochement is the application of the principle of Gregory to this reversal of the cult. [4, 14, 24]
4.4. The Commemoration of the Deceased and the Succor to the Souls of Purgatory
Catholic faith teaches retribution after death. Benedict XII defines in Benedictus Deus that the souls of the just enjoy God after death and, if it is necessary, purification, while the souls of those who die in actual mortal sin descend into hell. The dead are therefore not simply the wandering specters of a folklore: the souls of purgatory need suffrages, not a superstitious appeasement. This doctrine does not exclude the exceptional manifestations permitted by God, distinguished from the ordinary order in the Supplement of the Summa Theologica. [26, 28]
The commemoration of the faithful departed teaches another attitude toward death: to pray for the souls of purgatory, to offer for them the holy sacrifice, the prayers and the works of charity. The decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary of 31 October 1934 expressly recalls this constant solicitude of the Church and gives it a precise form. [25]
Its number 2 grants, under the ordinary conditions, a daily plenary indulgence, applicable only to the deceased, to the faithful who piously visit a cemetery and pray for them, even interiorly, during the eight days of this commemoration. It is the octave of the commemoration of the faithful departed, normally from 2 to 9 November. [25]
The pastoral contrast is fruitful: instead of reducing the dead to personages of terror or to accessories of derision, faith teaches to succor them and to prepare our own meeting with God. The representation of death is not forbidden as such; it is its signification that must serve truth and charity.
- The Duty of Parents and the Replacement Activities
5.1. To Educate Also in the Diversions
Pius XI asks the educators “that dangerous occasions be removed from him and that those of good be opportunely procured for him, in his diversions as in his frequentations” (Divini illius Magistri, 31 December 1929). The exhortation concerns the adolescent; it recalls that Christian education does not stop at the door of leisure. This general principle applies here to the words, the gestures, the readings and the spectacles really proposed. [17]
The fascination for magical power, for vengeance or for spirits must be taken seriously. The accounts of Ramirez, of Lipsky, of Swiegelaar and of Weaver show what their authors say they have sought or practiced. They give a concrete object to educational vigilance. Parents can refuse a framework that invites to the occult or gives the demon an attractive image, without awaiting an explicit Satanist engagement of their children.
The school milieu calls for the same vigilance. A festival organized by the school can present to the children an activity as acceptable and normal. The duty of parents bears on what their children are invited to do: their discernment cannot be replaced by the sole approval of an establishment.
5.2. To Offer Children a Catholic Orientation
It does not suffice to denounce. All Saints’ Day invites to make the saints known, to read their life and to teach children what deserves to be loved and imitated. Family prayer, healthy games, works of charity and, if it is suitable, costumes evoking the saints can give a joyful form to this education. A prayer vigil and assistance at the Mass of All Saints’ Day then at the Masses for the deceased orient the family toward God. Prayer for the deceased, the visit to the cemetery and the suffrages teach the seriousness of death in Christian hope.
It is also suitable to set aside the official celebrations that exalt evil and to recenter the organized activities on healthy amusements. We therefore recommend to Catholic families to choose All Saints’ Day and the suffrages for the deceased, and to keep themselves apart from the celebrations that make of the demon, of the occult or of the derision of the sacred an object of amusement. The Satanist documents and the personal admissions give this warning a real object; Scripture and moral theology give it the rule. Play erases neither the nature of a bad act nor the scandal that an example can produce.
The translation attributed to Bob Larson ends with this warning: “Children are never too young to learn that a day must not be dedicated to the devil.” It summarizes the educational intention of this refusal: to lead the children toward God and the saints, and to teach them to reject evil even when it presents itself under a diverting form. [16, 18]
- Historical Complements and Transmitted Accounts
These accounts, figures and anecdotes are conserved with their attribution so as not to confuse the absence of verification and the proof of falsity. Their status is that indicated below. The arguments of the plea rest on the documents and the principles set forth in the five preceding parts.
6.1. The Celtic Accounts and the Rapprochement with All Saints’ Day
Other accounts, taken up by Info-sectes, situate three hundred years before Jesus Christ a secret society of priests dominating the Celtic world. They present Samhain as a god of death, describe quests for offerings and sometimes for human victims, accompanied by curses of death in case of refusal. They attach to them the formula “trick or treat,” understood as an offering or a curse. The same accounts speak of hollowed turnips in the form of a face, lit by candles of human fat coming from previous sacrifices, representing a spirit supposed to make the curses efficacious; they make its name pass from Jock to Jack, whence Jack-o-lantern, the lantern of Jack. The presence of these accounts in the source is attested; their details and the filiations they propose remain historically unverified. [16]
The same presentation makes of 31 October one of the four great sabbaths and brings together four intermediate moments between the solstices and the equinoxes: 2 February, associated with Brigit, given as goddess of healing, and with Groundhog Day; Beltane, in May, with the plantings and the rites for the growth of the harvests; a feast of August in honor of Lugh, presented as solar god and as he who shines; finally Samhain at the entry into winter. It attributes to them a symbolism of death and of resurrection of the earth. For Samhain, it evokes a cauldron of abundance of the goddess, an intermediate season favorable to conjurations, the return of Samhain with the dead, the necessity of appeasing them and fires on the hills destined to keep away or to appease the supernatural powers. These precisions remain reported explanations, not all established ancient facts. [16]
Info-sectes also reports a permission that Constantine would have given in 308 to maintain the day of Samhain parallel to All Saints’ Day, while the pagans would have consecrated the preceding night to their lord of death. This account distinct from the consecration of the Pantheon is not confirmed and is not used as historical proof. The consecration of the Pantheon belongs, for its part, to the pontificate of Boniface IV and to the reign of Phocas. [4, 16]
6.2. The Legends and the Objects
In the legend of Jack transmitted by the same source, a man rejected from heaven and from hell wanders with a lighted coal in a hollowed turnip: the lantern figures a damned soul. The account then makes the turnips be replaced by pumpkins in America in the 18th and 19th centuries. This describes a tale and an alleged filiation, not the demonstrated presence of a spirit in a real pumpkin. [16]
The other traditional rapprochements concern the heads and skins of animals worn to acquire the force of the beast; an Irish procession requiring contributions from the farmers to protect the harvests from the demons; the game of the apple seized with the teeth in the water, interpreted as amorous divination; the cats, presented as humans under animal form, malevolent spirits or familiars of the witches; the hazelnuts and the objects hidden in the foods to predict the future; finally the masks employed to protect oneself from the spirits, to change personality or to communicate with them. These precise filiations remain to be established. They must not be confused with the certain judgment on a practice that would be effectively superstitious. [16]
An explanation further attaches the orange and the black to the Masses of November for the dead, to candles of beeswax, usually unbleached and described as orange-colored during the ceremony and to the black sheets of the coffins. This rapprochement is not historically confirmed. Above all, the Mass for the deceased belongs to Catholic worship: a resemblance of color does not transform it into an occult practice. The signification and the usage of the objects are determinant.
A prayer presented by the source as Cornish asks: “Good God deliver us from the ghouls, from the ghosts, from the beasts with long legs and that knock in the night.” Its exact origin is not established; it is therefore not proposed as a liturgical text. The intuition it expresses must receive its true orientation: to seek in God the protection, rather than to familiarize the children with a recourse to the spirits. [16]
6.3. The Diffusion and the Commercial Data
The account of diffusion transmitted by Info-sectes attributes notably to the Irish immigrants the introduction of these customs in America and their development at the end of the 19th century. It describes pranks, damages to properties and the overturning of outdoor toilets. It also reports the rise of the sales of costumes, the activity of seers, a rise of the books of astrology and of witchcraft and a haunted tourist event at Salem, in Massachusetts, destined to prolong the summer season. The detailed chronology and the amplitude of these phenomena are not specified by controlled data. [16]
Two figures circulate in this account: 60 percent of the costumes would be sold to adults, and one person out of four between 18 and 40 years would wear a costume on 31 October. Their year, their territory and their survey of origin are not identified: they do not constitute established current statistics. The mention of exhibitionism also belongs to this description and cannot be extended without proof to all the participants. [16]
Another formula attributes to The World Book Encyclopedia the beginning of what is “cold, dark and dead,” that is to say “cold, dark and dead.” The edition and the original passage not being identified, this attribution remains unverified. It is the same for the extension to all witches of the designation of 31 October as new year. These affirmations are not necessary to establish the documented Satanist usage in the second part. [16, 19]
6.4. The Material Dangers and the Reported Anecdotes
Vandalism, damaging pranks and the nocturnal circulation of little-visible children also fall under the prudence of the responsible persons. The transmitted account evokes sweets containing blades or pins, poisoned caramels and syringes used for drugs. It also affirms that 31 October would be in the United States the day of the greatest number of disappearances of children. This last affirmation rests here on no identified statistic; the frequency of the other facts and their link with Satanist rites are not established. Fearing them does not suffice to transform them into proved data.
Other episodes remain reported by Info-sectes: a federal action of Ralph Forbes in Arkansas against the school celebrations of Halloween, where he would have opposed the tolerance of Satanism to the interdiction of prayer and put the devil in cause as accused; searches for black cats that would increase at Chicago; and a suspension of their adoption for fear of ritual abuses attributed to improvised witches. Their date, their pieces and their results are not identified. They are conserved as accounts, without attributing to them the force of the documents or of the personal admissions previously set forth. A precaution taken by a shelter would not demonstrate, by itself, the abuses that it fears. [16]
Info-sectes also affirms that Halloween is celebrated in certain public schools and that most of the primary inspectors forbid it. This generalization is not established for a country and a period identified; the duty of discernment of the parents does not depend on this alleged majority. [16]
- Sources
[1] Holy Scripture: First Epistle to the Corinthians 10, 20–29; Ephesians 5, 11; Deuteronomy 18, 10–12; Matthew 18, 6; First Epistle to the Thessalonians 5, 22. Greek and Latin texts of the parallel presentation of New Advent; French translations of the cited passages given in the article. Original language: Greek for the New Testament, Hebrew for Deuteronomy.
[2] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 18, a. 2–4, especially a. 4, ad 3. Latin text of the Leonine edition, Rome, 1891, reproduced by Corpus Thomisticum.
[3] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 43, a. 1, especially ad 2; q. 95, a. 1–2; q. 96, a. 2, ad 3. Latin text of the Leonine edition, Rome, 1895 and 1897, reproduced by Corpus Thomisticum.
[4] Bede the Venerable, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, II, 4; original Latin text. English translation reproduced by Fordham, after The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, introduction by Vida D. Scudder, J. M. Dent, London, E. P. Dutton, New York, 1910.
[5] Anonymous, Tochmarc Emire, § 55; English translation by Kuno Meyer, The Wooing of Emer, Archaeological Review, vol. 1, London, 1888, pp. 68–75, 150–155, 231–235, 298–307; reproduction CELT, University College Cork, T301021. Irish original; reference to the paragraph of the translation.
[6] Francis Mershman, All Saints’ Day, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1907, English; reproduction New Advent.
[7] Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Bible, Avon Books, New York, first publication 1969, chapter Religious Holidays, English. Citation after a digital reproduction; the page of the printed edition of 1969 is not confirmed.
[8] Church of Satan, F.A.Q. Holidays, rubrics on the festivals celebrated and the importance of Halloween, English, without date, consultation of 29 October 2026.
[9] Nicole VanDyke, Ex-witch shares how she left the occult for Christ, why Halloween is Satan’s playground, The Christian Post, 31 October 2021, English.
[10] CBN News, Former Satanist Warns Christians about Celebrating Halloween, 20 October 2019, English; interview of John Ramirez with Charlene Aaron.
[11] CBN News, Take It from Someone Who Used to Talk to Satan: Halloween Is a Bad Idea, 29 October 2021, English; declarations of John Ramirez.
[12] CBN News, Ex-Satanist Exposes True Evil of Halloween: Blood Sacrifices and Demonic Desensitization, 28 October 2025, English; declarations of Riaan Swiegelaar.
[13] Billy Hallowell, Ex-Satanist, Witch and Psychic Embroiled in Darkness Abandons It All After Jesus Appears to Him: I Was in Shock, CBN News, 24 March 2025, English.
[14] Trent Beattie, Winning the Battle for Souls, National Catholic Register, 31 October 2012, English; interview with Deborah Lipsky.
[15] Czarina Ong, Former Witch Opens Up About Shocking Ritual of Abuse That Takes Place During Halloween, Christian Today, 22 October 2016, English; account of Beth cited by the article.
[16] Info-sectes, Histoire d’Halloween — l’horreur à l’honneur, French, without date. Translation attributed to Carol Voumard and Pierre-André Perrin, given as extracted from Bob Larson and taken up from Jeunesse Libérée, n. 170. Intermediate source of the historical accounts, statistics and anecdotes signaled as not established in the article.
[17] Pius XI, Divini illius Magistri, encyclical on the Christian education of youth, 31 December 1929, French translation published by the Holy See; passage on the diversions and the frequentations, corresponding to n. 89 of the English numbering.
[18] Bob Larson, Satanism: The Seduction of America’s Youth, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1989, English. Passage cited indirectly by Info-sectes and Jeunesse Libérée, n. 170; date of the number and pages of the extract not identified.
[19] The World Book Encyclopedia: indirect attribution of the formula on the cold, the darkness and death; edition and original passage not identified.
[20] Doreen Irvine, Set Free to Serve Christ, English; title attested by a bibliographic notice of ICM Books. The edition and the page of the reported warning are not identified.
[21] Codex Iuris Canonici, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, Rome, 1917, can. 1252–1254 and 1750–1753, Latin.
[22] Council of Auxerre, can. 1, Latin text reproduced in E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, vol. II, Oxford University Press, 1903, photographic reprint of 1925, p. 300, with reference to the edition of Maassen.
[23] Saint Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, ed. Germain Morin, second edition with appendix of Cyrille Lambot, Brepols, Turnhout, 1953, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 104, sermon 192, § 2, p. 780; title and beginning of the sermon p. 779. Latin original.
[24] Saint Gregory the Great, Registrum epistolarum, XI, letter 76, to Mellitus, according to the numbering of the English translation of James Barmby, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. XIII, Christian Literature Publishing Co., Buffalo, 1898; reproduction New Advent. Latin original; also transmitted by Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I, 30.
[25] Sacra Paenitentiaria Apostolica, Peculiares favores spirituales pro defunctis conceduntur, decree of 31 October 1934, n. 2, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. XXVI, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, Rome, 1934, pp. 606–607. Latin original.
[26] Benedict XII, constitution Benedictus Deus, 29 January 1336, Latin text reproduced by the Holy See; definition of the beatific vision and of the retribution of souls before the general judgment.
[27] Sermon 193, § 1, transmitted in the collection of the Sermones edited by Germain Morin, second edition, Brepols, Turnhout, 1953, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 104, p. 783. The editor discusses the attribution to Sedatus of the first part, pp. 782–783. Latin original.
[28] Summa Theologica, Supplement, q. 69, a. 2–3, on the sojourn of souls after death and the exceptionally permitted manifestations. Text consulted in the English translation reproduced by New Advent.