The Anti-Catholic Attack on Halloween

What would you think if I told you that the Catholic Church invented Islam, communism, and freemasonry, in order to undermine the faith of true Christians? That the holocaust was a Vatican plot, and Hitler merely the pawn of Pope Pius XII? That Catholics do not worship Christ and venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary, but instead worship the reincarnated Nimrod, founder of Babylon, and his wife (and mother!) Semiramis? That, as early as 1980, the Vatican had a supercomputer containing the names of every Protestant Christian in the world, designed to make it easier to round them all up in a future persecution carried out by the Catholic Church, headed up by the Antichrist, otherwise known as the Pope?

In all likelihood, you would (at best) laugh at these ridiculous ideas, and probably dismiss me as a raving anti-Catholic. Certainly, you wouldn't accept my claims as the gospel truth.

But what if I told you that every year, dozens of children are kidnapped and murdered by Satanists on Halloween? That scores more are injured or killed when they eat candy laced with poison or shards of glass? That every year on October 31, modern-day witches follow in the footsteps of ancient Druids by celebrating demonic rituals, including human sacrifice?

Some of you are now likely nodding your head in agreement. After all, you've heard these claims for years, and where there's smoke, there must be hellfire, right?

But what if I told you that, over the past 30-plus years, one man has worked tirelessly to advance both sets of claims, and that his attacks on Halloween have as much truth to them as his attacks on the Catholic Church? And that, indeed, his attacks on Halloween are not separate from, but very much a part of, his anti-Catholicism?

That man's name is Jack T. Chick, the owner of Chick Publications, the world's largest publisher of fundamentalist tracts—three quarters of a billion since 1960. Since 1980, he has made it his life's mission to subvert and undermine the Catholic Church. And in 1986, he opened a new front in that battle by focusing his attacks on the vigil of All Saints Day, better known as Halloween.

If you've quit celebrating Halloween because you've been told this holiday is evil, or if you want to find out how to defend Halloween from those who misrepresent its origins, you need to read more about Jack Chick and his crusades in Halloween, Jack Chick, and Anti-Catholicism.