Just wild about Harry
I can't recall how I stumbled on this article at LifeSite, but wherever it was I'm certain it was a link that said either "Pope" or "Ratzinger" - and readers should know that what gets posted here is anything that excites my interest in anything Catholic that my eyes find.
Somewhere, the people from LifeSite obtained copies of letters sent by our new pope when Cardinal Ratzinger was still Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In the letters, he congratulates a German author for a pamphlet she wrote decrying the evils of Harry Potter.
Ho boy. This opens up more cans of worms than an angler's tournament.
As one can find on the bottom of the page, LifeSite has an entire catalogue of Harry Potter-inspired warnings. I, like LifeSite, especially appreciate the various arguments posed by Michael O'Brien, but also those from John Andrew Murray, each of whom compare the Potter novels to other classical magic tales from Tolkien and Lewis respectively. O'Brien writes:
I have read The Lord of the Rings aloud to my children five times over the years, and I hope to read it to my grandchildren some day. A few of my children have gone so far as to purchase copies of the trilogy for themselves, and to read extensively in Tolkien's other writings. While it is true that there are ambiguous elements in his vast and splendid sub-creation, these are minimal, and indeed at times have prompted fascinating discussions in our family. But we do not read Potter here. This is neither parental paranoia nor the ghettoization of the imagination. We know full well that there is no work of fiction that does not in some way fall short of a complete vision of reality. However, there is a great deal of difference between a flawed detail and a flaw in the fundamental vision. A house with a weak window frame is not the same thing as a house built on sand. No matter how beautiful the decor of the latter may be, it is a place I would rather not live. More importantly, it is place where I will not take my children to live.That all said, this all sounds a bit to me like every other argument ever posed about cheap literature and music. Yes, bad things can happen. Yes, there are some terrible lessons that can be inferred from them, even if the intent is wholly innocent (as I believe Rowling's is). But there is value in gleaning the good from an objectively bad thing, just as there is hope in seeing something beautiful come from someone living in the depths of sin a depravity. Plenty of people who decry Playboy magazine (rightly so) also have nudes from the Renaissance masters hanging on their walls. One can possibly see the beauty in Playboy without lust, but one might also find a classical nude too alluring for their sensibilities. Context matters, as does our own predisposition to sin.
Those of us living in the world can try to hide from evil or we can stare it down. I don't recommend the latter for the faint of heart, but when I can, I personally find it distasteful to turn away from it simply because others cannot.
Rowling sits on my bookshelf - but Michelangelo doesn't hang on my wall.