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Wearing a Nun costume for Halloween
Nun costumes. Good, bad, or ugly? I’ve received a few emails from people wondering if it is respectful to wear a nun costume for Halloween. As always, the answer is “it depends.”
First I’d like to just mention a little bit about Halloween itself. Though Halloween is “a mixture of pagan, Christian, civic, and cultural influences” it does hold opportunities to celebrate one’s faith and Christian values. See “Celebrating Your Values on Halloween” at FindingGod.org for more info and practical suggestions. Halloween (“hallow” as in “blessed” or “holy”) is also the eve of All Saints Day, a great day in the Church because we celebrate all of those saints of God, living or dead, who are part of our big family of faith through Jesus Christ. Traditionally children have dressed up as their favorite saint and today many continue this tradition. Today of course, we extend this tradition to children’s favorite heroes too.
So, in this context, it is perfectly acceptable for a child to wear a nun or monk costume because she or he is living the best of the tradition of Halloween. It is a chance for children to emulate the people around them (nuns that teach them at daycare or a friar helping out at the soup kitchen) or the saints they read about. This is also a great opportunity for parents to teach their children about these ways of life and explain the respect that the should have when dressed up as a nun, sister, monk, priest or saint. For example, be sure that rosaries aren’t slung at fellow trick-or-treaters. Parents could also teach their children how to say a prayer of blessing so that the children have concrete ways to really get into their character. As a Catholic nun, I personally would be honored to see children respectfully and joyfully wearing nun costumes!
Now, here’s the other side of nun costumes: adults wearing nun costumes. Pretty much all of the above information applies to adults. If you are going to a costume party and the wearing of a nun (or other religious) costume is done out of genuine respect, than I don’t think there is a problem with that.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of adults wearing religious costumes at Halloween are purely for pranks, shock value, and laughs. This is indeed offensive and unacceptable. Rarely are such costumes created or worn respectfully. Do a quick Internet search for “nun costume” and you’ll see that most of the image results are of nun costumes that look like lingerie and come with descriptors such as sexy or naughty. In addition, some pranksters wear nun costumes and pretend to be pregnant or they partner up with guys in priest costumes so as to look like a romantic couple. Others wield rulers or don boxing gloves. There is NOTHING respectful about these costumes. They participate in the worst of nun stereotypes and are offensive to Catholic nuns and the Church. I’d like to tell these people to “grow up” but even children have better sense and than these folks.
Now, for those of you whose children are dressing up in nun costumes or other religious or saintly garb, I’d LOVE to see pictures and post them on my blog for All Saints Day, November 1. Send them to me via email at “post(at)anunslife(dot)org” (no quotes).
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Thanks for addressing this – I will definitely share your wisdom with the moms who visit my site!
Thanks for this information it was very interesting. I also wanted to mention that I had an opportunity to talk to several “nuns” during a recent Civil War reenactment. They were talking about how nuns during the war would help with wounded soldiers. These portrayals were very well done and in very good taste.
I wish I had access to the photos of my students dressed as their favorite saints and holy people! I used to insist that my first Communion class of 2nd graders would dress as their patron saint for Halloween, the culmination of a month of studying the saints and their symbols. My primary motive was to introduce the children to their patrons, but also to counteract the “blood and gore” aspects of Halloween costumes. Imagine my dilemma when little Steven came to school dressed in a white toga, covered in blood, and carrying a bloody rock!
One of my kids made the front page of the local paper dressed as Pope John Paul II. His mother was a wonderful seamstress and he was fully outfitted in alb, cncture, stole, gorgeous chasuble, pallium (!), and crozier.
I sewed three halves of old sheeting together to make a 6′ long strip and marked it with three blue lines from a permanent marker. Thanks to my Indian “Philosophy of Education” prof in college, I finally put to use the one thing I learned in her class (“This is how to put on a sari.”) and won a prize as Mother Teresa of Calcutta! I later went begging for change from the kids and made $6.48 for the Mission Fund!
I’ll try to dig up something.
There is a city not too far from where I live called “Jersey City.” I don’t know what it is about that place, but people who are raised there are usually hilarious. There must be something in the water! To give you an idea, Father Benedict Groeschel is from Jersey City as he often mentions amidst much of his humor.
When I was attending college, some of my friends were from Jersey City. Many were devout Catholics who often spent alot of their time in their parish communities. They were a close-knit bunch – and a lot of fun. One year they invited me to their parish Halloween party. It was an absolute blast. Everyone seemed to have a great time mingling with each other – young and old alike. One of my friends, a demonstrative, theatrical sort who was later to become a priest himself, dressed up as a bishop going around blessing everybody and brought his girlfriend as, yes you already guessed it, a pregnant nun. When he entered the hall, the pastor came up to him, told him how he loved his costume and laughed hysterically – many others followed suit. Everyone thought it was a hoot. I remember thinking it was a little off color but kind of funny. And if the priest could get a charge out of it, why not me? In the suburbs, where I came from, this probably would have been “too much. But in good ole Jersey City, it was a hit among the faithful!
I don’t really know what the moral of the story is, but I thought I’d share …
dee
Hmm .. I’m not really sure what to say about the moral of that story as well, though I’m tending toward suggesting that just because a priest or nun or devout person thinks it’s funny doesn’t mean that it’s not offensive. The difficult thing is that some of this is indeed funny, but funny in an I’m-not-sure-if-I-should-be-laughing-at-this-kind-of-way. Religious people (myself included) are certainly not exempt from perpetuating a stereotype or two. I had a close family friend who was a Catholic priest and many of his jokes made fun of nuns. Years of this went by and when I decided to become a nun, I was reluctant to tell him because his jokes had so ingrained themselves in me that I was afraid he’d look at me as a joke too. The upshot is that even funny jokes can send a harmful message.
Now I certainly don’t recommend that we all cease and desist Catholic humor and become killjoys. Play and fun are good, but they are so much more thoroughly enjoyable when they come out of a place of love and genuine respect.
Considering what nuns in Africa have had to endure with priests preying upon them, and then being turned out by their orders when they get pregnant, I would have stood up to the offenders and asked them to change or leave!
In a lighter vein, our local seminaryhad a Halloween party where they had to come dressed as their favorite church item. One came dressed as a monstrance and announced, “I’m your host for the evening.”
Sr. Julie:
I think the way they looked at it was that they were making fun of themselves among friends. I don’t really feel it was intended to be offensive. But who knows, perhaps it was? As I mentioned, I thought the whole thing a little odd. But different strokes for different folks I figure. I would never dress up as a pregnant nun.
So how did your family friend priest respond to you becoming a nun? I hope his nun jokes stopped! Honestly, I think the possibility or likelihood of mockery is probably one of the reasons some younger women who wish to enter the convent find it somewhat difficult. For example, if I told people that my daughter has mentioned becoming a nun, she’d be mortified. She does not want people to laugh at her – especially in her teen years!
dee
Hi dee — our family friend actually seemed surprised that I hadn’t consulted with him as if I should have gone through him in order to make that decision. It was weird for a while and not quite right after that.
You raise an important point about young people having to deal with the thought of being laughed at or mocked. I was fortunate to be studying theology at the time I decided to become an IHM Sister and was surrounded by women religious, priests, brothers, and lay people who understood what a vocation was. That was the easy part. Letting friends and family who were outside of my academic and faith environment know was much more challenging. Though everyone was supportive, there are the inevitable jokes and assumptions and stereotypes that creep out from other people — most often quite unintentionally and certainly not maliciously. Having a good support system already in place helped me a lot. My prayers are with your daughter … and with her mom! Blessings, dee.
Sr. Julie:
Thank you for your prayers. I feel that if my daughter were to opt for the religious life, she’d know plenty of people who would support it, including my husband and I. My brother would be supportive as well. Some of my husband’s family would probably give her a hard time. And many of her friends would probably be shocked. I would just hope nobody would shun her. But she is a very strong individual and by the time she would have to make such a decision (I really wouldn’t encourage it until her mid-20s as in the case of marriage too), she would definitely be able to deal with it. What I try to do for now is to expose her to younger sisters. It’s not like I drag her around to meet them. I’ll just mention it, for example, Sr. so and sos convent just got this young sister – she is really into skiing and loves blogging . This way she realizes some nuns are young and quite normal and fun loving. But we’ll see. She’ll be going on a retreat this year. I have a feeling that sort of thing will deepen her faith. Plus she wants to attend the next World Youth Day – if we can afford it! Madrid would be great! She’ll have to brush up on her Spanish!
dee
I’ve “dressed up” as a nun twice. One was for halloween – I was ten – and the other was for a project on – who else – Mother Teresa. Actually, when I first started following your blog I laughed at when you mentioned that you didn’t want to be a nun growing up and that you didn’t dress up as a nun for halloween, because I sure did! Of course, becoming a nun was my childhood dream, so I certainly did it out of respect.
I did get made fun of for wanting to be a nun as a child, and I don’t think I talked about it all that much (although that might not be true, as I just had a middle school reunion and people remembered!), though friends were not as mean about it as family. I think the hardest thing was that people thought that becoming a nun was a kind of death; like, if you want to be a nun, then you must be afraid of the world/growing up/sexuality/etc… it was just assumed. It was also assumed that you were a serious person who couldn’t have fun – which relates to your other post on nuns having fun. None of it ever made any sense to me, as I think I’ve always had quite a happy personality accompanied by extreme silliness.
It was hard to get that feedback over and over again, as it was to hear about how the Church was an awful institution and that nuns mistreated people, etc…not that all the criticisms weren’t valid (and I’m extremely critical of the Church myself), but it was like, “Dude, I’m 12, give me a break!.”
Dude, I couldn’t agree more!
Then, of course, there’s the stereotype that nuns don’t say “dude”…
Ha! You both reminded me of our Sister Elizabeth Marie, who when she was over 100, told a joke during a thank-you talk at a donor Mass about “a city dude.” Just hearing the word “dude” out her mouth was priceless!
Great post and it was so well put.