Posted on 09/03/2019 10:01:05 AM PDT by FewsOrange
St. Edward Catholic School in Nashville, Tenn., has removed the internationally bestselling “Harry Potter” book series from its library, citing the depiction of “curses and spells.”
The Rev. Dan Reehil, a pastor at the Roman Catholic parish school, told The Tennessean newspaper that the seven-book series had been removed from the school library. "These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception, Reehil said in a statement to the paper. "The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text."
The decision to pull the massively popular J.K. Rowling-penned series, which has spawned 10 blockbuster movies, was made after Reehill said he consulted with several exorcists in the U.S. and Rome. Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, told the outlet that the Catholic Church does not have an official position on the Harry Potter books, which tell the story of a boy wizard and his friends at their wizardry boarding school.
For more than 20 years since the first book was published, the boy wizard who faces off against the evil dark wizard Lord Voldemort has faced criticism that it gloried witchcraft and the occult. The American Library Association in 2006 named the “Harry Potter” series as the most challenged books of the 21st Century.
Hammel said the school’s pastor “has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school." “He's well within his authority to act in that manner,” Hammel continued, adding that the series is still on the shelves at other school libraries in the Nashville diocese. She said that parents are the ultimate judges for what media thy determine to be appropriate for their children. "We really don't get into censorship in such selections other than making sure that what we put in our school libraries is age-appropriate materials for our classrooms,” the superintendent said.
The first book came out in ‘97. The school is a bit slow. A whole generation has read them.
“Numerous exorcists have spoken about the deliverances they have been involved in where the demonically possesses or oppressed allowed the demonic to gain access to them via HP.”
Is any of this available on the web that you could link to?
‘Riddikulus!’
Deu 18:11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
Well, then, if the Dursleys didn't stone Harry to death, that's their fault. I'm just a guy reading the book.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure they are not real.
If that means we have to ban any book that has witches or wizards in it, then we would have to ban the Bible too.
As Christians I know myself and friends all struggle with this one. A question I guess would be what is the difference between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and its wizards?
Fr. Notorious Dissenter finally retired, and his replacements are orthodox and have greatly cleaned up the parish, from what I've heard. This happened within the last three years or so.
You said: “People in the secular world don’t even consider these concepts anymore.”
And there in lies the danger of the Potter, Narnia, or even Grimm’s fairy tales, for people who reject the existence of good and evil in the world.
Ban them or don’t ban them, it makes no difference. They are crap. For one thing, Dumbledore is not exactly the kind of name that strikes feat in the hearts evil wizards. Dumb old dork. He was made fun of a lot when he was a kid. Second why name the girl Hermione which nobody can pronounce phonetically? I still don’t know how to say her me own.
Harry never gets competent in anything except the stupid quidditch game that you win just by a second scoring method that renders the rest of the game unimportant. It would be like football where all someone has to do is throw a baseball into the end zone.
And as far as Harry Potter ever being a wizard, it’s always luck or someone else who saves his bacon.
I think more people find their evil reinforced by the spells they cast via the keyboard of their HP computer, than in reading HP books. Hewlett Packard vs Harry Potter.
And, less flippantly, opening themselves up to evil via Ouija boards and just the idea that evil does not exist.
We should burn Toikens dooks too. /s
Way to go reinforcing stereotypes as book banners...maybe have a bonfire or something.
Leftists. rightists...religious zeal...don’t like any of it. Doesn’t matter the “side”, repression is usually bad.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xDQGnB0xm_g
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LGNaruEYOE0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dsuAqUsw-Bc
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a3tqq6ouR6s
These are just a few examples. If you do a Google search of Harry Potter, Fr Ripperger, Fr Amorth you’ll find more. Even Pope Benedict advised parents not to allow their children to read the books.
“As Christians I know myself and friends all struggle with this one. A question I guess would be what is the difference between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and its wizards?”
There is no difference. They both promote magic, wizardry, and the occult.
The only reason for the struggle is the enjoyment of the occult books, and the desire to not give them up - not because one does not realise that the books promote witchcraft.
Deuteronomy 18:11
1” Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”
According to Tolkien lore
Gandalf was one of only five wizards in Middle-earth, also known by the Elves as the Istari. The Istari were “angelic spirits” sent by the Valar
The Valar are the Gods who serve under Eru Ilúvatar, the supreme being of the universe, creator of all existence
Remember, Tolkien was very Catholic
LOL! I honestly don’t understand this mentality. Plus the school probably permits all sorts of horrible state-sponsored sex ed material...
For the record:
The so-called Moral Majority did indeed ban the fantasy books by both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.
Here are the proofs:
I live in an urban, leftist locale. At the time, a store called A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books had a special shelf in the lobby filled with books officially listed as banned by the Moral Majority. They were all taped off. Both Lewis and Tolkien were included.
I was invited to pastoral conferences by special invitation at age nineteen. At one such conference, I sat at a lunchtime picnic bench filled with ordained miinisters. They all essentially denounced, or at least denigrated, the trilogy by Tolkien. Not one of them saw any positive value in it.
Those latter were not even part of the “Moral Majority,” which was basically a movement by Jerry Falwell and his minions, a so-called “Evangelical” movement; these pastors were neither Arminian nor Anabaptist.
The truth is that what I call “concrete operationalists” are at best dismissive of all speculative, imaginative literature. They see it as certainly useless, and probably subversive.
I have no issue with a Christian school making such decisions for their campus and students. I just do not let them make decisions for me personally. Both are freedom-based positions.
See Reply 58 (and my tagline).
Absolute lunacy!!!
Ban/burn books, but keep the institution that churns out pedophiles.
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