by Geoff Vasil

Shrovetide is the Catholic period of confession and repentance marking the transition from winter to spring in the calendar year. In Lithuanian it’s called Užgavėnės, which is how the Lithuanian language used to indicate the period before Gavėnia, or Lent, the period leading up to Easter. Both the English and Lithuanian names are rather obscure—the English name almost sounds like “shroud” and to shrive is an archaic verb for confession and absolution by the Catholic priest—but the holiday is immediately recognizable to people around the world in its more popular names Carnival, Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday.

Tuesday is really the last day of the Shrovetide period and represents European pagan/Catholic syncretism, the mixture of pagan bachanalia and saturnalia-type celebrations with the Christianity emanating out of Rome. The excesses and parties of Carnival have always been condemned by ecclesiastical authorities and yet have continued to the present. Carnival in many ways mirrors Halloween, which precedes All Saints’ Day, and in Lithuania there is a tradition of Shrovetide “trick-or-treaters,” children in costume going door to door seeking pancakes.

These costumed characters are a reflection of earlier and larger Shrovetide processions in Lithuania. In the post-1990 period of Lithuanian independence great efforts have been made to revive what was for all intents and purposes a dead tradition, public Shrove Tuesday events. The Soviet regime consciously sought to extinguish the tradition as a religious manifestation, but doing away with the traditional holiday was accomplished in different ways in different locations. The most effective manner of getting rid of the holiday was co-opting it in a more general Soviet “Ushering-out of Winter” holiday using a cast of costumed characters slightly more acceptable in Soviet society, but even the best-laid plans of the Soviet methodologists never really did away with the mischief inherent in the celebration and against which the Catholic Church had fought unsuccessfully for centuries.

“Unfortunately, anti-Semitism, which I reject in all forms of thinking which are the antithesis of Christian principles, is still very common in our time”, Pope Francis said in a meeting with representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, reports the website regions.ru.

The Pope also cited a document published 50 years ago, Nostra Aetate, which identified approaches to solving the problem of anti-Semitism. It specifically states that the Church “feels obliged to do everything possible to help our Jewish friends to overcome anti-Semitic tendencies.” Head of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt called meeting fruitful.

The Anti-Defamation League is an American Jewish NGO and is considered one of the leaders in combating anti-Semitism.

Pope Francis also recalled his visit to Auschwitz last year, saying: “There are no adequate words to describe the horror and cruelty of sin that was going on there. I pray the Lord have mercy, and such tragedies are never repeated.”