Harry Potter "Is Like Spiritual Peanut Butter" -- And That's A Bad Thing? Posted by J.P. Freire October 26 at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Things are heating up in Wakefield, Massachusetts:
I don't know which is sillier -- the story of a priest banning Harry Potter from his school, or the way reporter Rhondella Richardson (an "investigative reporter") speaks truth to power:
"Parents are petrified to share their opinions... Only a handful had enough faith in their convictions to speak up."
Righto. Otherwise, they might find their tires slashed, or just lose their children entirely to albino assassins. A strict Catholic school? Rhondella, you've got quite a story on your hands.
Especially when you have an archnemesis who says things like this:
"Let's say you have organic vegetables in a bowl of soup. And I happen to know that that broth has some poison in it. [Rowling] had a nice kinda series, ... but I have a problem with the broth she put it into."
Huh?
Interestingly, the Pope has previously written about the dangers of Harry Potter, describing them as "subtly seductive." But what's the big deal? I don't mean with Harry Potter. I mean with religious leaders saying that literature can be bad. If moral authorities are supposed to be moral authorities, why shouldn't they tell their congregations what is and is not okay? Here's something I wrote a few years ago on the topic:
Harry Potter may not exactly lead young Jimmy into a lake of fire, but it is not a reach to say that it could without guidance detract from the Church's message -- just as a child watching Desperate Housewives might get the wrong idea about what marriage is really like.
As for Potter, sure, the series is entertaining, but the emphasis on magic doesn't exactly sit well with Catholic teachings. Maybe the reporter would have been better off investigating the possibility of this priest's relation to St. Peter?
