Don’t be afraid of spirits, CBCP urges faithful

Ghosts are spirits of your dead relatives.

Don’t be afraid when you see them today and tomorrow as they have come from the afterlife to ask you to pray for the eternal repose of their souls, a Catholic Church official said yesterday.

Today, All Saints’ Day, and tomorrow, All Souls’ Day, Filipinos remember their dead relatives and tell horror stories to one another when they visit the cemeteries.

People should not fear the dead but instead pray for them, especially their loved ones who have passed away.

"We should pray for our dearly departed, they should not be feared," said Monsignor Hernando Coronel, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

"We do not know exactly where they are. They are in the afterlife. We are uncertain where they are. But we should not be afraid of death."

Death is a passageway to the afterlife and the Church is encouraging Catholics to pray for their "dearly departed" on All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

"In our faith, death is a chapter in life," said Coronel. "It is not something to be feared, but it is a stage, a necessary stage if we are to meet the Lord. It is a new chapter."

Only God knows where a person goes when he dies but what is certain is that they are "somewhere" and that we should pray for them, he said.

"When we pray, we emphasize that the souls be in eternal rest," said Coronel. "There are some spirits who are not at rest. When the death of a person is sudden, in my experience, I encourage the family to pray for the eternal repose of the person who passed away to encourage eternal rest."

The Catholic Church believes in the afterlife but it does not refer to spirits as "ghosts" because people tend to identify them with "bad" spirits. –Sandy Araneta

"In the world of spirits, there are good and evil spirits," said Coronel. "There is something beyond the material world. There is the realm of the spirit."

Angels are good spirits and evil spirits are represented by Satan and the devils that are depicted to surround him amid volleys of fire in hell.

"In matters of the spirit, we urge our people to continue praying and trust in His Providence to guide us," said Coronel. "We do not believe in the occult. This is against the practice of Catholicism."

The occult is beyond the virtue of religion, Coronel added.