Dracula: The Original Is A Catholic Classic
- Christopher Potratz
- Oct 25, 2014
- 2 min read
(CHRISM NEWS/ SUZANNE CARL) It's the season for ghouls and ghosts. Classic Halloween tales of Vampires and Frankenstein have been replaced with zombies, serial killers and reluctant vampires who really regret it, but they just have to drink your blood. This sympathetic view of evil is destructive to the soul. It makes accomodations for the evil. It doesn't try to fight it, but to tolerate it. After all, who are we to judge the sad attractive vampire who only wishes to take the pretty girl away from friends and family for all eternity!
Had enough, but still want a spooky scare for Halloween?
The answer is the original Bram Stoker's Dracula. The book, NOT the movie.
From the beginning, we are presented with young people who are on the verge of marriage. Many critics have described the book as a Freudian study of repressed sexuality in the Victorian era. This misses the mark. Bram Stoker was an Irish Catholic, and that Catholicism permeates the entire novel.
What does Van Helsing use to fend off the Count? The Eucharist of course. Early in the novel, once it has been established that a vampire is at work, Van Helsing leaves his Anglican friends to receive a dispensation from his priest to take the Hosts with him into battle. The Host is described by Jonathon Harker as, "For him (Van Helsing), the most sacred of possessions."
Without the Catholics in the novel, all of these poor Anglicans would be at a loss. When Jonathan Harker escapes from Dracula's castle, it is cloistered nuns who save him. When Mina arrives at the cloister to take him home, they are married by a Catholic priest.
When Mina has been tainted by Dracula, she is distraught to learn that she is "unclean." How does she know? Van Helsing touches the Eucharist to her forehead, and it leaves a burning scar.
Catholic novels, particularly ones in which the Eucharist plays the greatest role in overcoming evil, are rare. Take a spooky break this Halloween season, and enjoy. Dracula - a Catholic classic.
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