Halloween and Black Magic in Today’s Poland
I need advice with a problem that combines a common child rearing dilemma with the specific challenges of the cultural politics of today’s Poland. My nine-year-old daughter asked a friend from school if she’d like to come over to carve some jack-o-lanterns. She was eager to share one of her traditions, which excited her because so far this year she’s always been on the other side of that dynamic of cultural exchange. Her friend said that she she’d love to come over, but only if no pumpkins (or anything else related to Halloween) was involved. It turns out that in religion class, the teacher had given a lecture about the evils of Halloween, which she presented as a Satanic ceremony tied to dangerous black magic. I’ve asked around, and apparently this has become a pervasive late-October lesson in religion classes across Poland. I was aware that some in the Catholic Church in Poland opposed Halloween, but I did not realize that this had become such a wide-spread teaching.
Obviously, I want my daughter to gain a respect for cultural differences, and to have a tolerance for religious beliefs even if they might seem strange or even irrational to her. If a friend of hers had turned down a Sunday activity because it interfered with mass, it goes without saying that I’d use that as a teachable moment about the different customs that other families have. If we had to change a dinner menu because a guest was Jewish or Muslim, I’d take the same approach. But this feels different. First, in the past Catholicism has not been opposed to Halloween! Of course it has pre-Christian roots, but no more so than the rituals that Poles practice on November 1. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I’d be surprised to hear anti-Halloween messages from priests in the US, not to mention Ireland. The idea that the holiday is evil has emerged in Polish Catholicism only in recent years, and has more to do with the fear of a cultural import than with any religious teachings. That’s why I said that this is related to recent transformations in Polish cultural politics. But even setting that aside, how do I teach cultural tolerance when my daughter’s own cultural heritage is being attacked (with absurd inaccuracy)? I was really flummoxed when she asked “why would teachers here in Poland lie about what we do on Halloween?”