Dang. I wonder if it’s too late to cancel my pre-ordered book from Amazon.
It is?
Oh well, then I guess I’d better stop my active practice of the Roman Catholic faith.
Oops, did that already.
<Rosanne Rosannadanna>Never mind</R. R.>
Must say, I’d be interested in hearing in what way Ratzi “corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil”.
At least he did not, as far as I can tell, misinterpret them as badly as one Fundy writer did (who grudgingly read HP2, and managed to decide that Voldemort was supposed to represent Christ and Harry was therefore Satan. No, I’m not making that up, I read it from a link someone posted here).
Did you actually read the letters? He basically blew her off. In his first letter, he said, basically, “Thanks for your letter. It’s important to pay attention to the Harry Potter book, because if a book for kids encourages false values, it can be bad for their spiritual development. Please send a copy of your to the guy in the Curia who deals with cultural matters, as that’s his concern.”
Then in the second letter, he says, “Sorry I haven’t had time to write to you. I’ve just been really busy answering birthday and Easter letters. Now that that’s done, I’ll have time to deal with your issue.”
Here’s the money quote (translated) from his brief letter: “It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.”
Personally, I think he’s being rather picky about this and I really don’t care. However:
When the LOTR movies were being made, there was discussion here and elsewhere about how there were possibly sexist and racist elements in it. Ditto in discussions about the Narnia books. “Lessons and morals” were less important.
Heck, change a very few words in the above quote and you get my impression of the message of those discussions: "“It is good, that you enlighten people about LOTR/Narnia, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort liberalism in the mind, before it can grow properly.”
As buttonjockey308 notes, being a killjoy is not limited to religion or one end of the political spectrum.
I will never understand the notion that fantasy novels will corrupt children. Most of the moral, decent people I know read more fantasy than the average, less than decent people I meet. The most powerful message that the Harry Potter books delevered to me, ie, the one thing that I can quote basically from memory, was the speech about doing what is right, not what is easy, which by all my years in Catholic school, is something that the Church would approve of.
And I, too, am of the opinion that no one will really listen to the pope.