Ognissanti versus Halloween: note sulle origini storiche di un conflitto reale e virtuale in Italia

This essay aims to reconstruct the historical origins of actual and virtual polemic of Italian catholics against Halloween: a feast of the dead, which calls into question the line of demarcation that separates the life from the afterlife, because the dead make themselves close to the living and influence their existence in a positive and / or negative way. Early christians believed the same ‒ like pagans ‒ and they expressed directly their devotion for the dead, in the manner of pagans and whitout the mediation of the Church, that fought against these conceptions and customs. Nowadays the same elements of this ancient polemic can be found again in the opposition to Halloween of Italian catholics also through social media, such as Facebook, where the ‘battle’ of All Saints is waged versus Halloween.