Happy Halloween!

Today is Halloween. Time for trick or treating, costumes, and whatnot. Generally a time for fun, or so you would think.

I'm sure you've have heard all sorts of rambling about how "evil" Halloween is and how it's nothing more than Satan's holiday and that Christians should avoid it at all costs. Most of this kind of talk seems to come from Evangelicals.

So is Halloween a Satanic holiday? Well if it is, it's largely the result of modern popular culture trying to protray it as such. But in actuality, no it is not. Halloween actually has Christian(specifically Catholic) origins, and Melissa Knoblett-Aman explains very well how Catholics in particular should deal with Halloween. Namely that Catholics can indeed celebrate the holiday and should use it to educate children about All Saints' Day and its meaning. She also provides interesting links explaining in greater detail the Christian origins of the holiday.

You can also read "Ideas for Sanctifying Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day", which gives good advice on how to keep your Halloween celebration within a Christian manner.

So Trick or Treat my friends!

New Urbanism Article

In relation to my post concerning suburban decadence and the "New Urbanism" movement, here's an interesting article I just recently found.

No to Turkey's E.U. Membership

Well it seems that talks concerning Turkey's membership into the European Union have already begun. This while Austria's lone opposition to this proposal was bypassed. In the face of this opposition, the Turkish prime minister claimed that Turkey deserves E.U. membership or else Europe will condemn itself to being merely a "Christian club". OH NO! The horror of that possibility!

Pope Benedict XVI himself has voiced his opposition to Turkey's membership, claiming that for centuries it represented the archenemy of Christian Europe. The most famous confrontations between these two camps occurred when the Turks twice besieged Vienna, the capital of Austria. This perhaps helps explain why it's leading the opposition to Turkey's membership into Europe, it does not wish to see history repeat itself.

Let us hope and pray Turkey is denied full membership into the E.U.