Rationalize it all you want.
Cardinal Ratizinger defaulted to Fleetwood as an authority. His modesty doesn’t change that fact, my FRiend.
“The Pontifical Council for Culture is that department (Dicastery) of the Roman Curia which assists the Pontiff in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the benefit and service of the universal Church and of particular Churches concerning the encounter between the saving message of the Gospel and cultures,”
JPII put Fleetwood on this Council and you may not want to see them as experts on culture, but they are.
When Pope Benedict defaults to the “Chief Exorcist” or the Priest in the OP, then they have more standing. Until then, the Msgr he did default to, says HP is not New Age and not harmful.
The last I will say on the subject is, you can find what you want on the internet. My own Pastor, who my daughter was intelligent enough to ask, agrees with Msgr Fleetwood. AND he read the books for discernment. ‘Nuff said.
In a second letter to her [Kuby], dated May 27, 2003, he [Ratzinger] wrote that he "gladly" gives her his permission to publicize his judgment about the Harry Potter series. In a handwritten personal Christmas card he sent to her in December, 2003, he said, "Thank you very much for your courageous engagement against occultism and magic."
It was not until two years later, after he had been elected Pope, that the disinformation in the secular press began to be addressed. When a Catholic media journal in Canada published copies of the Ratzinger-Kuby correspondence, its reports sparked a number of articles and interviews with Kuby and other Potter critics that made some headway in correcting the false impression that the Church approved of the series. However, the damage had been done, the myth had circulated as fact among countless people. Even now in the year 2010, it is not uncommon to meet journalists, pastors, and parents who cling to that erroneous first impression, partly because corrective media attention amounted to only a fraction of the earlier propaganda.
In our times it is not generally the practice of the Catholic Church to make definitive judgments on cultural matters. Even so, when certain minor officials of the Vatican make public statements about books and films, their opinions are often treated as magisterial. For example, one priest in a Vatican congregation has publicly questioned the veracity of the Kuby-Ratzinger correspondence. He has also dismissed Fr. Amorth's warnings about the Potter books, saying, "Well, Fr. Amorth is a priest and I am a priest; he has his opinion and I have mine." He did not go so far as to say, "Well, the Pope is a priest and I am a priest; he has his opinions and I have mine." Exercising strategic caution, he simply refrained from any consideration of the positions held by the chief shepherd of the Church.
Thus, confusion grows, and with it a sifting of the Body of Christ. Culture has been the instrument of the division, a vehicle of moral and spiritual corruption that has penetrated very far into the Lord's flock by entangling numerous Christians in a strained effort to find a little good in a welter of evil concepts and images, to justify an appetite for what is ultimately harmful to souls.
This in turn has bred the potential for further divisions and much anger, recriminations, bitterness, and unforgiveness. It goes without saying that no one is really immune to subjectivity. We are all sinners, and we all must struggle through trial and error to reach a proper integration of faith and reason ... [O'Brien then goes on to quote Cardinal Ratzinger, from Called to Communion.] --Michael D. O'Brien, excerpt from Harry Potter and The Paganization of Culture
“Rationalize it all you want.”
ROTFLMAO!! That is one of the funniest things I've ever read on FR!
I point out the precise words of Msgr. Fleetwood which you choose to ignore or reason away and I'm the one rationalizing!! Too much!! LOL!!
“The Pontifical Council for Culture is that department (Dicastery) of the Roman Curia which assists the Pontiff in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the benefit and service of the universal Church and of particular Churches concerning the encounter between the saving message of the Gospel and cultures,”
I see nothing in what you quote about expertise in discerning the New Age content of works of literature or of film.
“JPII put Fleetwood on this Council and you may not want to see them as experts on culture, but they are.”
Actually, no. False. If you were to actually closely read the mission of the council, part of its mission is to gather OTHER experts (from outside the Vatican - people who are actually and really experts on various cultures, religion, religious indifference, etc.) for conferences, talks, discussions of cultures, religious indifference, the interaction of non-believers and the Church generally.
There is nothing stating that the officials of the council are they, themselves experts on cultural matters. Just the opposite. The main role of the council is to facilitate dialogue, not to provide expert opinion on specific works of literature or film.
There is nothing stating that it is the competence of the council to provide authoritative guidance on specific works of literature or film. You are reading into the mission what you wish to see. Also, even if it were actually true (which it isn't) that the actual members of the council were meant to be experts on culture, there is nothing there that even remotely suggests that they would also be experts on New Age stuff.
“When Pope Benedict defaults to the “Chief Exorcist” or the Priest in the OP, then they have more standing. Until then, the Msgr he did default to, says HP is not New Age and not harmful.”
Actually, it was Cardinal Ratzinger (or more accurately, his office) who sent along the letter to the council. He wasn't yet pope. Moreover, he sent along the letter in question with a note suggesting disapproval of Harry Potter stuff.
That Msgr. Fleetwood has a favorable view of the oeuvre should suggest to you that there is diversity of opinion even within the Curia of this work.
It should also suggest to you that this matter doesn't rise to a particularly high enough level of concern to the Church that it cares to work through that diversity of opinion to an authoritative answer to the question.
“The last I will say on the subject is,...”
It really should be, as the argument that the off-hand comments of a curial functionary are somehow authoritative teaching isn't really tenable.
“... you can find what you want on the internet.”
LOL! I went to the VATICAN WEBSITE and quoted from the VATICAN WEBSITE what the purpose and mission of the council is. Is that insufficiently authoritative for you?? ROTFLMAO!!!
“My own Pastor, who my daughter was intelligent enough to ask, agrees with Msgr Fleetwood. AND he read the books for discernment. ‘Nuff said.”
That's nice. I don't necessarily disagree with Msgr. Fleetwood. Or your pastor. To me, it seems that there is room for diversity of opinion on the topic. Of course, that's how Msgr. Fleetwood appears to see it, as well, but of course, in this instance, you reject the Vatican's “authority” on the subject. I don't.
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