Vatican's Chief Exorcist Repeats Condemnation Of Harry Potter Nove

[Kirisutodo333]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1331127' date='Jul 16 2007, 06:22 PM']Actually, I find Star Wars much more disturbing, as far as philosophy goes.

At least all the others are, to a greater or lesser extent, all written from a Christian perspective. Star Wars leans more toward an Eastern (non-Christian) religious and philosophical foundation.[/quote]

Actually, Star Wars is one of the best examples of mythologies that touch upon the "true myth" of Christianity.

There are many examples but I will name just one. Anakin Skywalker is the archetype "chosen one/fallen hero" and his son Luke is the archetype "Chosen one/Redeemer." Now let's compare it to Christianity.

Anakin (Adam) sins and falls from grace. He was the chosen one but he failed. And it takes Luke (Jesus) to make all things new and redeem Anakin (Adam). Makes sense?

Stories like Star Wars, LOTR and Narnia open people up to the "mystery of Christianity" by silently touching upon the true myth of Christ.

Harry Potter tries to do this but ultimately fails. LOTR and Narnia had the supreme grace that transcended their authors into their works and it showed in their stories. Star Wars was successful because it heavily relied on archetypal mythology, which I believe is one of the ways into the mystery of Christianity. Harry Potter tries to do this by incorporating archetypes but and a BIG BUT, it fails to definitely draw a line between good and evil. For example, Harry's professor teaches the students how to use magic to kill, even though he says it's bad, he still does it and kills the spider in front of everyone. Where in LOTR and Narnia do we find a mentor teaching the main character, "this is how you use magic to kill?"

[Totus Tuus]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1331021' date='Jul 16 2007, 03:33 PM']Lauren, I like and respect you, but basing your comparisons of Tolkien and Lewis against the movies is not fair. It makes your criticism ring hollow. And I think Cathoholic noted several good things, about the made-up spells, redemptive aspects of main characters, etc. I would encourage you to read the article I linked to earlier; I think it does a good job of explaining the Christian themes and symbolism you can see in the book. The author notes that Rowling uses many of the same symbols used by Tolkien and Lewis, and also notes the changes that occur to characters throughout each book, which are reminiscent of redemptive themes. I think there are many good things you can pull from the books even on a surface reading; you don't have to be well-educated and well-formed to fish for good messages from them.[/quote]


I don't get it. How does comparing the Christian authors with the non-Christian authors, and the way that shows in the films, make for a hollow argument?

[tojo]

[quote name='Paladin D' post='1331100' date='Jul 16 2007, 05:06 PM'][b]Question:[/b] Is Rowling even a Christian? I know Tolkien was Catholic, and Lewis was Methodist (was Catholic friendly).[/quote]

C.S. Lewis was a member of the Church of England (Anglican/Episcopalian). The Methodists descend directly from the Church of England though, and share some commonalities. Perhaps this was somehow the source of the confusion.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='Kirisutodo333' post='1332122' date='Jul 17 2007, 09:15 AM']Harry Potter tries to do this by incorporating archetypes but and a BIG BUT, it fails to definitely draw a line between good and evil. For example, Harry's professor teaches the students how to use magic to kill, even though he says it's bad, he still does it and kills the spider in front of everyone. Where in LOTR and Narnia do we find a mentor teaching the main character, "this is how you use magic to kill?"[/quote]
As a point of clarification, the above refers to a scene in which "Mad-Eye" Moody taught the "Avada Kedavra" spell to students in a Defense Against the Dark Arts class. However, it should be noted that it was not THE "Mad-Eye" Moody, a good guy, who taught the students this spell, but Bartemius Crouch, who had gone to the "dark side" and who impersonated "Mad-Eye" Moody using a polyjuice potion.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='Totus Tuus' post='1332303' date='Jul 17 2007, 11:12 AM']I don't get it. How does comparing the Christian authors with the non-Christian authors, and the way that shows in the films, make for a hollow argument? [/quote]
You haven't read the books.

So your criticisms of the books carry very little weight (in my mind at least).

[Sojourner]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' post='1331632' date='Jul 16 2007, 10:21 PM']My take is that Harry Potter is for ages 10 and up. Sometimes, I think the books are PG-13. All that making out in the last one![/quote]
This I would agree with. They are not children's books, at least not the more recent ones.

Read the Velveteen Rabbit instead.

[quote name='MichaelF' post='1331659' date='Jul 16 2007, 10:40 PM']Well, that's to be expected, given that the author (Pullman) is very vocal about his hatred of Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular.

No surprises there.[/quote]
Too true. Which is sad, because the books are quite well-written. Fantastic, even, but for the anti-Catholic/Christian stuff. Which is significant enough to make the books troubling.

[jkaands]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1331119' date='Jul 16 2007, 04:19 PM']Like I said, I've considered his warnings, but after my own analysis and my own reading of the books and input from other sources, I respectfully disagree.

Admittedly, I have never witnessed an exorcism, but one horror tale about a kid who read Harry Potter and ended up possessed causes me no concern about the state of my soul -- and I've read all six books more than once. Especially since there are millions of people who have read the books and DON'T end up possessed or obsessively absorbed in witchcraft.

I bet the kid also brushed his teeth from time to time. Maybe that did him in. Correlation does not equal causation.

As far as her Christianity goes, there are arguments pro and con. Do a google search.
Frankly, people should be MORE concerned about "The Golden Compass," the first of the "His Dark Materials" series to hit the big screen (slated for release in December). Now THAT is a disturbing series.[/quote]

hear, hear terra.

while you're worrying, consider dungeons & dragons, all those video games about car theft, etc, and GOTH. Those were the influences which helped make the Columbine murderers go berserk.

I had a close Catholic friend I worked with, a woman in her 40's with a teenager, who identified herself as a "devout Catholic" and she and we--loved HP. We were impressed by the kids' virtues of love, fidelity, courage, and constancy-- and studying and learning their (crazy)homework! The only thing I don't like is that the adults are always abandoning the young'uns, but you see this in all childrens' books.

I wish that the Vat exorcist has something better to do--what about Osama--go find and exorcise him!!

[Kirisutodo333]

[quote name='kenrockthefirst' post='1332525' date='Jul 17 2007, 02:52 PM']As a point of clarification, the above refers to a scene in which "Mad-Eye" Moody taught the "Avada Kedavra" spell to students in a Defense Against the Dark Arts class. However, it should be noted that it was not THE "Mad-Eye" Moody, a good guy, who taught the students this spell, but Bartemius Crouch, who had gone to the "dark side" and who impersonated "Mad-Eye" Moody using a polyjuice potion.[/quote]

I want to note however though that it was disturbing to witness the children laughing and thrilled by the fact that the professor was manipulating and controlling the spider. It's the little subtle actions that enter in the gray area of morality. These subtleties lie throughout the series.

But I still find HP to be an extremely entertaining read. But it pales to comparison to LOTR and Narnia regarding their Christian message. LOTR and Narnia are Christian works, HP is not.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='Kirisutodo333' post='1332682' date='Jul 17 2007, 02:07 PM']I want to note however though that it was disturbing to witness the children laughing and thrilled by the fact that the professor was manipulating and controlling the spider. It's the little subtle actions that enter in the gray area of morality. These subtleties lie throughout the series.

But I still find HP to be an extremely entertaining read. But it pales to comparison to LOTR and Narnia regarding their Christian message. LOTR and Narnia are Christian works, HP is not.[/quote]
Arguably, HP is written with a Christian message. You should read the article I link to earlier in this thread.

[KnightofChrist]

Spiritual message perhaps, Benedict (Ratzinger), Fr. Amorth, and I would seemly argue that, that spiritual message is an occult message, even Satanic. Even a occult message can have "morals."

[quote]And unlike Lewis, whose books are drenched in theology, Rowling refuses to view herself as a moral educator to the millions of children who read her books. "I don't think that it's at all healthy for the work for me to think in those terms. So I don't," she says. "I never think in terms of What am I going to teach them? Or, What would it be good for them to find out here?"

"Although," she adds, "undeniably, morals are drawn." But she doesn't make it easy. In Goblet, the good-hearted Cedric Diggory dies for no reason. In Phoenix, we learn that Harry's dad, whom he idealized, had been an arrogant bully. People aren't good and bad by nature; they change and transform and struggle. As Dumbledore tells Harry, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Granted, we know Harry will not succumb to anger and evil. But we never stop feeling that he could. (Interestingly, although Rowling is a member of the Church of Scotland, the books are free of references to God. On this point, Rowling is cagey. "Um. I don't think they're that secular," she says, choosing her words slowly. "But, obviously, Dumbledore is not Jesus.")[/quote] [url="http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0705-time-grossman.htm"]Source[/url]

Well she says "morals are drawn." How can she write a Christian message and not think it healthy to think about what she is teaching the kids who read her books? She can not.

Edited July 17, 2007 by KnightofChrist

[Sojourner]

Sorry ... apparently my post about HP's Christian message was in some other Potter thread. There are so many similar threads I got confused.


[url="http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/16.9docs/16-9pg34.html"]Anyway, here is the link to the full article.[/url]

And here are relevant passages:
[quote]In her Harry Potter books, J. K. Rowling looks at the world diagonally and sees its
magic. I believe this diagonal vision springs from her classical education and its ideas of truth, love, and beauty, and her consequent discomfort with modernity and with modern ideas and institutions. She conveys the world’s magic as a traditional English writer writing within the traditions of her genre. And one of these traditions is the use of alchemical symbolism to convey spiritual realities.

We think of symbolism, after being trained by mechanical teachers and lifeless texts, as cardboard signs saying, “this represents that.” “The white whale is a symbol for God, Mrs. Johnson,” we all learned to say in tenth-grade English. An authentic symbol, however, is a means of passage and of grace between the shadow-world of time and space in which we live and what is real.
...
The reason many of the great authors of the English tradition used alchemical symbols—Shakespeare, Milton, Herbert, Donne, Blake, Joyce, and Lewis, for example—is that they are what Lings calls “the best symbols,” “the clearest reflections . . . of the higher reality.” These symbols do the job literature and drama set out to do.

Understanding the Harry Potter books as alchemical writing in the tradition of the English “Greats” will explain otherwise bizarre events, plot turns, and names in the novels. It will also help explain the worldwide popularity of these books (because they speak to deep spiritual desires), in what way Christian objections to them are ironic (because they miss Rowling’s point), and why the almost uniform approach of scholars to the books as cultural artifacts to be dissected is a typically modern mistake (ditto).
...
To the first question. Although Rowling has not said that she is writing in the alchemical tradition of English literature, she has insisted that she is a Christian and that her faith is important in understanding her work.
...
Third, Harry’s transformations from lead to gold: The alchemical work is about changing the soul from lead to gold, from failing to virtue; is this evident in the title character’s transformations in each book? Yes, it is.

In the first, Philosopher’s Stone, the orphaned Harry lives in fear of his aunt and uncle, the Dursleys, and without any knowledge or delight in who he is. By book’s end, he shows himself a champion of remarkable courage and daring, and has become reconciled both to his parents’ deaths at the hands of the sorcerer Voldemort and to his own destiny as a wizard. In Chamber of Secrets, Harry begins the book as a prisoner both of the Dursleys and of his own self-doubts and self-pity. At the heroic finish, he risks his own life to liberate a young girl and vanquish the villain, who is an incarnation of selfishness and self-importance.

Harry blows up his Aunt Marge because he cannot overlook her slights of his parents at the beginning of Prisoner of Azkaban. At the end, he rescues the man who betrayed his parents to Voldemort by offering his own life as a shield to him. He goes from unforgiving judgment to mercy in a year. In the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, Harry begins by being consumed by thoughts of what others think of him, his external person. By book’s end, after trials with his best friend, the Hogwarts student body, and a dragon, he is able to shrug off a front-page hatchet job in the wizarding world’s main newspaper.

Finally, in Order of the Phoenix, Harry is consumed by a desire for news. He struggles to listen to television, agonizes over the lack of reports from friends, and wanders his neighborhood in search of newspapers in trashcans. At the end, he is aware of his need to turn inward and to discover and strengthen his inner life, and he knows that his dependence on the outer world and its events was his point of vulnerability, by which Voldemort manipulated him, and of the weakness that helped cause his god-father’s death.
...
And finally, the books hinge on the relation of Harry and Voldemort. Order of the Phoenix begins with three mentions of Harry’s feeling that his skull has been split in two, and one has to imagine it must crack right down that jagged scar. It turns out that Harry’s head really is divided and he has an unwelcome guest. He isn’t carrying a passenger like Quirrell, nor is he possessed as was Ginny but Harry has a double nature or shadow in his link to Voldemort—and his inability to turn inward and confront this shadow is the cause of the tragedy at the book’s end. Like his dad at fifteen, he was willingly blind to the “back of his front.”

This pairing or unity in division is a central theme of the Harry Potter books, and it has an alchemical meaning. The activity of alchemy is the chemical marriage of the imbalanced “arguing couple” of masculine sulfur and feminine quicksilver. These antipodal qualities have to be reconciled and resolved, “die” and be “reborn,” after conjunction before recongealing in a perfected golden unity.

Certainly, the similarity of this language to the Christian spiritual path is remarkable—and understandably so, because the symbols of the completion of the alchemical work are also traditional ciphers for Christ, the God/Man, in whose sinless two natures Christians are called to perfection in his Mystical Body, the Church. Dumbledore uses the language of Chalcedon in Order of the Phoenix (chapter 21), in fact, to distinguish the two natures and essence of Harry and Voldemort.

But the old and the new man cannot live together in the same person or world—and this is Harry’s war with his doppelganger or twin-in-spirit, Lord Voldemort. Love has overcome death in each of the books’ endings thus far; I expect this will be the series’ end as well.[/quote]

The whole article is interesting, and speaks directly to the topic of the spiritual implications of HP ... more convincingly, in my mind, than the arguments that have been posited here thus far.

[KnightofChrist]

But, again...

[quote]Rowling refuses to view herself as a moral educator to the millions of children who read her books. "I don't think that it's at all healthy for the work for me to think in those terms. So I don't," she says. "I never think in terms of What am I going to teach them? Or, What would it be good for them to find out here?"[/quote]

How can she write a Christian message and not think it healthy to think about what she is teaching the kids who read her books? She can not.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote]In Goblet, the good-hearted Cedric Diggory dies for no reason.[/quote]
True, but he died due to the impact of Voldemort's evil. The world can be a bad place, bad things happen to good people. That is why we must resist evil to the best of our ability. Among the "morals" to be drawn from the HP stories are: do what's right, whatever the cost; stick by your friends; tell the truth ("I must not tell lies," anyone?).

[quote]In Phoenix, we learn that Harry's dad, whom he idealized, had been an arrogant bully. People aren't good and bad by nature; they change and transform and struggle.[/quote]
Yes, Harry's dad was a jerk to Snape, and that was a real wake up call for Harry. Indeed, one of the compelling things about the HP stories is that depth of the characters, they're not cardboard cutouts, just as we aren't in real life.

[KnightofChrist]

I dont know you guys, supports of Potter are asking alot to be proven wrong. Does potter have to come right out and say the devils my buddy? Does the Pope have to write an infallible statement that potter is part of the occult before you believe?

The devil is a subtle seducer, he will pull us down to hell bit by bit. If he is the "author" behind potter he is not ever going to come out and say it. That would not gain him the souls he wishes to devour.

Also I would question highly anything the world loves, the world is in love with and praises Potter and promotes it highly, while that same world insults and condemns Christ, and His people.

Edited July 17, 2007 by KnightofChrist

[kateri05]

[quote]Third, Harry’s transformations from lead to gold: The alchemical work is about changing the soul from lead to gold, from failing to virtue; is this evident in the title character’s transformations in each book? Yes, it is.[/quote]


yes!! this is exactly the sort of thing about virtue that iwas trying to get at in my other thread! throughout the course of each book, and really the series, he grows, and develops into a better person through overcoming obstacles. and i love seeing how each book presents a specific obstacle at the beginning to overcome and have it come full circle by the end!

can't wait till the last one! saturday is definitely booked for me! :