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Thursday, March 28, 2024

CBCP urges faith-full ‘Undas’

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LIPA Archbishop Ramon Arguelles on Thursday called on priests, religious, Catholic school heads, and parish leaders in his archdiocese to start “re-Christianizing” Halloween through activities that give special attention to the lives of the saints.

The prelate lamented that due to the Western influence, the “wholesome” observance of halloween (“All Hallow’s Eve”) has lost its religious character which is “bordering on the demonic.”

“Please introduce in our parishes and our communities the correct commemoration of the saints and the holy souls during our November celebration of the Church’s triumphs and sufferings,” the prelate stated in a circular posted in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ official website.

Arguelles said, in a Christian calendar, on Nov. 1 and 2, Catholics worldwide traditionally take time to pray for the souls of the departed and to commemorate the Communion of Saints.

“Unfortunately, secular, consumerist, and pagan practices have also seeped into what is sacred and spiritual in our religious observances,” he said.

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Arguelles then appealed to all ordained and unordained ministers of Lipa to help him revive the true meaning of the liturgical event.

“May I endorse the proposal of the Prayer Warriors of the Holy Souls to make the Halloween celebrations more focused on the proclamation of saintly life stories,” the prelate added.

Pasig Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara also urged the faithful to avoid doing the culture of “trick or treat” and start a parade of saints instead.

In a radio interview over Radio Veritas, Vergara appealed to the Filipino faithfuls to make the observation of All Saints and All Souls day as holy and not scary.

“We all know the other tradition we call trick or treat every Halloween and we parade all masks, those that are ghosts, gooey and scary costumes. The Church challenges the public to parade the saints instead,” Vergara said.

He added that the act of “trick or treating” has becoming a tradition because every Nov. 1 families go to cemeteries and trade scary stories.

Vergara said the All Saints observation is a reminder to all Filipino Catholic to be “holy” in all things.

Like the other priests, San Jose Nueva Ecija Bishop Roberto Mallari also said that to take this opportunity to be in the presence of the saints through praying.

This he said is in line with the call of Pope Francis for the extraordinary jubilee a “Holy Year of Mercy” which will start on Dec. 8 and will end on Nov. 20, 2016 urging all the faithfuls to remember our departed loved ones through prayers.

Kalookan Bishop Virgilio Pablo “Ambo” David urged all priests and faithfuls to make the All Saints day observation peaceful and “trash free.”

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