(LifeSiteNews) — The International Association of Exorcists (AIE) has warned against celebrating “demonic” and “pagan” Halloween.

In an article published on October 27 titled “The Halloween deception, the beauty of All Saints,” written by AIE vice president and experienced exorcist Fr. Francesco Bamonte, the organization called on Catholics not to participate in Halloween but instead celebrate All Saints Day.

“Few know that from September 22nd of each year the groups and movements of neo-Witchcraft Wicca and Satanism begin a blasphemous ‘Lent’ that continues for forty days, characterized by increasingly vile actions and rituals to reach their peak on the night between October 31st and November 1st, which they call Halloween night, but for Catholics all over the world it is instead the beautiful bright night of the Feast of All Saints,” Bamonte wrote.

“Unlike All Saints’ Day, Halloween proposes dark themes such as murderous violence, the mockery of death or its despairing exaltation, the macabre, horror, the occult, witchcraft, the demonic,” the article states.

“Halloween thus exalts ugliness and celebrates gruesomeness and darkness, instilling the horrid in the minds of the little ones and young people, and then exposing them to nightmares and night terrors.”

The AIE called the celebration of Halloween “consumerist” and “irrational,” which “confirms the profound cultural transformations caused by secularization with its contradictory recovery of the magical mentality culminating in a neo-pagan revival.”

According to AIE, Halloween “has its roots in a pagan religious celebration: the festival of Samhain, which originated among the Celts, a population that settled in ancient times in many areas of the continent, from the British Isles to northern Italy.”

“Therefore, Halloween is by no means a secular occasion, a harmless mass global holiday, because in reality we are faced with a real re-presentation and relaunch of a pagan religious festival during which magical rituals were performed with animal and even human sacrifices.”

“The neo-witchcraft of our times, which has organized itself in motion under the name of Wicca, on its main festivals of the year celebrates, as the Celts did, the anniversary of Samhain,” which takes place on the night between October 31 and November 1 and marks the “beginning of the satanic year.”

“Those who celebrate Halloween, therefore, even if they do not intend to join witchcraft and do not intend to celebrate the devil, in fact put themselves in communion with these dark realities,” the AIE warned.

Fr. Bamonte cited the founder of the Church of Satan in the U.S., Anton LaVey, who said, “I am glad that Christian parents allow their children to worship the devil at least one night a year. Welcome to Halloween!”

Catholic alternatives to Halloween

Bamonte addressed the Catholic initiatives he has seen in Italy in response to Halloween which honor Jesus Christ and the saints on the eve of All Saints Day.

“It is comforting and fills the heart with joy that in the evening and night between 31 October and 1 November, as an alternative to Halloween, more and more priests organize various initiatives, such as processions of the Saints, representations of the lives of the Saints in the parish halls, hours of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in reparation and various other proposals aimed at raising Christian awareness of the celebration of the feast of All Saints,” he wrote.

“Among these initiatives, the ‘Night of the Saints’ organized in various dioceses has been worth mentioning for some years.”

Bamonte mentioned another initiative where Catholic boys went from house to house to give out cards of saints instead of “trick or treating.”

Traditionally All Hallows’ Eve was celebrated the evening prior to All Saints Day on October 31 across Europe and was a Catholic holiday in commemoration of the saints. However, today’s Halloween has been co-opted and inverted by secular and satanic forces, as AIE and many other Catholic observers have pointed out.

Some Catholic authors – for example, Dr. Marcel Antonio Brown – have argued that Halloween should be reclaimed as a Catholic feast. One idea put forth by Brown and others is for children to dress up as their favorite saint instead of ghoulish monsters, skeletons, or demons, as many nowadays do on Halloween.