Catholic communities across Italy are offering a religious alternative to Halloween on the evening of 31 October, with prayer vigils, pilgrimages and concerts organised from the north to the south of the country. While many families prepare for trick-or-treating and costume parties, dioceses, parishes and religious orders are inviting young people and families to spend the night in worship and reflection.
The initiative is most visible in the so-called «notte dei santuari», the night of the sanctuaries. The Office for Pastoral Care of Free Time, Tourism and Sport of the Italian Episcopal Conference, the CEI, has moved the event from its usual June date, where it had been held since 2019, to coincide with Halloween. The aim is to highlight sanctuaries as places of evangelisation, welcome and pilgrimage. According to the Vatican-linked news agency SIR, around 150 events are planned nationwide, including prayer vigils, pilgrimages, personal testimonies and artistic and cultural moments.
In Rome, the Snc-Charis Italia movement has organised a gathering titled «Notte di Ognissanti – Notte di luce», or All Saints' Night – Night of Light, built around the theme «You are the light of the world». The programme at the parish of Santa Dorotea in Trastevere begins at 9 p.m. with a solemn concelebrated Mass, followed by moments of adoration, evangelisation and confession. The same initiative is also being held in Trento.
Elsewhere, the Poor Clares of Bra, in the Piedmont region, have organised what the event is explicitly framed as an anti-Halloween gathering at the church of their monastery. The schedule includes the recitation of the rosary at 8:30 p.m., Eucharistic adoration at 9 p.m. and Mass at 10 p.m. In the diocese of Padua, young people are gathering at the Opsa in Sarmeola for «Santi nella notte», a programme mixing music, animation, testimony and prayer. The evening features an electric concert by the band Reale and is promoted by the Fraternità Vivere da Dio together with the diocese's youth pastoral office. In Ravenna, a «veglia di tutti i santi», or vigil of all saints, will run through the night until dawn.
In Milan, the diocese has organised the «Notte dei Santi 2026» for its young people, who will gather at the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio. Participants will move through a series of stations, combining celebration and prayer with the bishop. In Asti, the parish of the Sacro Cuore is hosting a «Festa della luce», which includes a sacred «happy hour» and a «cena con delitto», a murder-mystery dinner, followed at 9 p.m. by a «Veglia dei Santi». Through the lives and stories of the saints, participants will be invited to rediscover the call to holiness as a path open to everyone.