The Pope's stance on harry potter

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The pope thinks Harry Potter should not be read by people.

In one response, dated March 2003, he wrote in German: "It is good that you enlighten us on the Harry Potter matter, for these are subtle seductions that are barely noticeable, and precisely because of that have a deep effect and corrupt the Christian faith in souls even before it could properly grow

"It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly," wrote Cardinal Ratzinger.

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05071301.html


What do you think? Are Harry Potter books evil?

I've always found HP eays to relate to as a churchgoer myself. My parents were missionaries in Ivory Coast, Africa when I was little, and I've always had a funny feeling of deja ve when reading the books. Like the world of missionary kids being very similar to the world of Hogwarts. I will try to think about this in more detail so I can explain it more clearly!

Funny that of all the areas to look to have a differing opinion from his predecessor, it would be on his opinion of a bestselling book. As long as he's not persecuting people of differing religious beliefs...

In all seriousness though, I seriously doubt books should be banned, and for Harry Potter to be placed alongside such books like Rousseau's "De Contract Social" or Diderot's "Encyclopedia" is absurd in that it would ironically make the book all the more memorable for generations to come.

It is not the first time Harry Potter and Pope Benedict have gone head-to-head. Earlier this year the Pope's new book Salz der Erde (Salt of the Earth) overtook advance sales of The Half-Blood Prince in the German bestseller list with a five-figure print run being ordered to meet demand.

I don't agree with him. Even though I haven't read Harry Potter, I'm not going to try to stop other people from reading it. They can read it if they want to; it's not my decision what they do with their time. However, I do not believe I should read it. I have heard from various sources (that I trust for movie and book reviews) that HP contains a lot of magic and wizardry, and I just feel really uncomfortable with that.

Bottom line: they aren't evil, but there is better stuff that can be read.

is it okay for the books to be read by family pets, then, do you think? or furniture?

strange, really, cos half the christian fundies want to ban it. cos it's about witches, and half want everyone to read it, cos it's about witches. (the latter half want it available cos it shows how wicked and evil witches are, and people shouldn't be allowed to forget about such things. this is true. i studied it - until i got bored, which was about 3 picoseconds.

personally, i don't read them - the first one was bad enough. and the first three chapters of the second (which was all i could inflict upon myself) were execrable.

Last edited by vetivert on 07 Dec 2005, 4:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Last edited by Ante on 09 Nov 2005, 7:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

reading harry potter books, obviously.

That Pope is worse than Voldemort!

Oh come on... il papa has a point here...how can we worry about such trivial things as pedaphile priests and international sex slavery when there are fictional books about young "witches and wizards" who use their powers for such malevalant things as...unlocking doors, and making fat ladies levitate...for shame JK Rowling...for shame

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Last edited by Ante on 09 Nov 2005, 7:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Is he has bad as emperor palpatine?

He's probably going to say magicians are evil.

I obviously have no problem with Harry Potter. It's ridiculous that this Pope thinks they are evil when the last Pope didn't have a problem with them either.

I've read essays written by people who think the books are evil. I think there are great lessons to be learnt from them. I've heard fundamentalist Christians state that state they hate how the books don't have a clear distinction between good and evil. One reason I love Harry Potter is that for the most part no character is entirely good or entirely evil. It is more like real life.

The bottom line is that Harry Potter is a fantasy book. Almost all fantasy books display both good magic and evil magic. I think people should have the right to dislike something and I think people should have the right to speak out against whatever they want. But seriously, the people who protest a fantasy book must not have anything better to do with their time.

Though I hold Harry Potter with a certain contempt, I don't consider them overly evil, not in the way the Catholic Church does.

Though get this:

The Catholic Church is guilty of many of the worlds atrocities, thousands upon thousands of people dead by the church's order. Numerous invading crusades into other sovereign lands, burning of innocent people because they were weird (ie: they must be a witch). They were even allied with the Nazi party briefly before they realised that it wasn't such a good idea to be so publicly allied with something the rest of the world hated.

Harry Potter, a book series that has brought the joys of reading to millions of children and adults across the globe, enriched people's imaginations, and overall given people lots of enjoyment.

Now how can the above Catholic Church call Harry Potter evil?
I'll tell you why, because Harry Potter might push people away from the Catholic teachings and doctrines, and onto some more free thinking religions...

I'd like nothing more than to see the Vatican burn to the ground...

I've never read Harry Potter.


GA

Excuse me, but some of the posters here are Catholic and I am certain do not happen to espouse the same offensive beliefes about Catholicism that some of you apparently do. I presume that if someone would make similar statements about Judaism or paganism that such comments would not be tolerated.