Is it anti-Catholic to celebrate Guy Fawkes' Night?

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Guy Walters had this to say in the Telegraph in 2010:

guy_fawkes
Which is better – Guy Fawkes' Night or Halloween. Personally, I'm with my namesake (no predictable jokes please), as I find the manner in which Halloween is celebrated to be tacky. Give me a box of fireworks and a plastic cup of scalding tomato soup over trick or treating any day.
As soon as I mentioned I was going on air to champion Guy Fawkes' Night, a good friend sent me a message on Facebook indicating that he found November 5th a 'celebration of religious persecution'. Like many Roman Catholics, my friend takes offence at the burning of an effigy of the Pope that takes place at Lewes and I can quite see why.
However, I'm certain that most people who attend Guy Fawkes' Nights – which are, after all, more commonly just called Bonfire or Firework Nights – do not do so out of intolerance towards Roman Catholics, but simply to have a get-together and ooh and aah at a few fireworks. Yes, we should certainly remember our history and know why we do in fact commemorate the thwarting of an act of mass murder, but the passage of over four centuries has surely – barring Lewes – eradicated any sense of anti-Catholicism associated with the celebrations.

Comments

  1. Manny8:41 pm, November 05, 2012

    I'm not English and I've never lived in England to assess the cultural meme of Guy Fawkes' Day as practiced today. But as an American Catholic it certainly feels like anti Catholicism to me.

    ReplyDelete

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