You are Cordially Invited to a Party in Honor of Satan and Hell

Via America's Newspaper, AP exposes the great European backlash against the "American habit" of Halloween (a holiday, last I checked, with European roots). And by "backlash," they mean menacing remarks by a crazy Swiss mayor, an Italian theologian, and "an Austrian who backs the small but strident boycott movement" :

In Sweden, even as Halloween's popularity has increased, so have views of the holiday as an "unnecessary, bad American custom," said Bodil Nildin-Wall, an expert at the Language and Folklore Institute in Uppsala.

Italy's Papaboys, a group of pope devotees who include some of the young Catholics who cheer wildly at Vatican events, have urged Christians not to take part in what they consider "a party in honor of Satan and hell," and plan to stage prayer vigils nationwide that night.

Papal groupies notwithstanding, Americans themselves are perfectly capable of recognizing that Halloween is a vast conspiracy of chocolate industry lobbyists, sexual predators, and whatever you call the guys who stick needles in candy corn.

Whole thing here. Tim Cavanaugh notes that "Satan has a way of winning every holiday season" here.