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Hi father,

I wanted to ask out of curiosity, if making the “horns’ gesture” is anti-Catholic.  I am  from  Naples and  this gesture is deeply rooted in our  southern culture for many reasons.Either to joke, or in a superstitious way etc.. .I often do it myself, sometimes unconsciously and when I was little, when I had bad thoughts, I did it downwards as for casting out the evil and those thoughts.

Thank you in advance and have a good day, father.

Priest’s answer

Dear friend,

1. as you wrote this gesture is made sometimes in order to joke and sometimes with a superstitious meaning. I wouldn’t pay any attention to this gesture when it’s made as a  joke: it is usually meant for general laughter.

2.It’s different instead when it’s made for superstition, that is to say in order to drive away negative influences or disturbances. In that case, this gesture is associated with an occult power. Now ,the gesture itself has no occult power but, even if  a person doesn’t think about it, it is like opening the doors to occult strengths. These strengths surely don’t come from God.

 3.I don’t want to be that dramatic about a gesture that is overall made trivially. It’s often the legacy of a costume, of a mindset, of an impulsive way of reacting. But if made consciously, it’s part of the sins of superstition, that in this case consists of making the dynamic dependent on occult powers, to which  the door becomes therefore silently opened .

4.A Christian has other means to drive away such negative influences or disturbances. The primary one consists in living in God’s grace, that is to say to benefit from the personal presence of Jesus in our heart. In the Holy Scripture God’s grace is presented as a shield, an armor, a hedge having a power far greater than an effective evil cast by a certain person. It is actually a power of supernatural order, divine.Instead , all the occult powers which can be summoned  are never of supernatural order . They can be of preternatural order, namely out of the power of human nature and are specific to creatures higher than men. It is the power of angels, good and bad (demons).Their power is called preternatural.

The supernatural, which is  much higher than preternatural , belongs solely to God and , for His goodness, also to the souls in a state of grace.

5.Apart from God’s grace, which is ordinarily given by the sacraments, we also have lots of religious means that neutralize bad omens and  negativities. They are the blessed objects such as the cross, the Holy Rosary, and the medals. So as not to place this reality at the same level of superstitious practices and make of it a valid resource, it must be remembered that it’s not the thing or the object itself that has this capacity, but the entity it represents: Jesus Christ, the blessed virgin Mary, the angels, the various saints portrayed in the medals. Through  these blessed objects we are sending  a silent invocation for their protection from evil.

6. I like to remember one of the three graces mentioned in the Roman Ritual to those who carry the Holy Rosary blessed by a Dominican priest and  belong to the Holy Rosary confraternity: “always and everywhere be protected from visible and invisible power of this world”. (The Roman Ritual, rosarychurch.net). As you can see,  the blessed Holy Rosary has a power the evil strengths can’t resist. Indeed they vanish like the darkness in the presence of the light.

7. The other two graces are those of a growing attraction and devotion towards God and to deserve at the end of our days to be accompanied before the court of Christ by the blessed virgin Mary, who in that moment will be our advocate.

Keep going on with faith then, always dwelling in Jesus Christ with the sanctifying grace and the company of all the dwellers of Heaven.

I wish you all the best, I bless you and I remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo