Reading through the comments on your article has been \u2013 no exaggeration \u2013 one of the most spiritually and intellectually degrading exercises of my life (though it\u2019s no fault of yours). It is hard to share in Chesterton\u2019s delight in the common person and his belief in the fundamental alright-ness of \u2019em when confronted by what such persons seem to emit when given access to a soapbox. That the comments were being put forth under the guise of thoughtful, cautious holiness only makes them worse.<\/p>\n
To put it bluntly, I have never seen such bile-inducing stupidity in my life \u2013 never. It\u2019s a miracle that some of these people can tie their shoes, let alone function as competent adults.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be sure to mention that I said this during my next confession, but said it I have. Good grief.<\/p>\n
P.S. Seriously, this whole thing has occasioned a very thorough remembering of what it was like to be purely secular and to encounter the appalling quality of thought present in some of those comments.
Back then, at least, I would have spent the next several days (even
weeks) following these people in their comments around the site and telling them exactly what they were. I am grateful to have been brought beyond such desires, anyway, even if only for the time that it saves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It has been a depressing display as the comboxes have dragged on, but be aware of a couple of things. First, the general dynamic of a combox is that normal people have their say first and then, have said their piece, move on. This is particularly true when the subject is something as non-crucial as Harry Potter.<\/p>\n
That leaves the zealots and fanatics to continue the discussion and they tend to carry it out until the edge of doom. The problem is, there seems to be no short supply of excommunicating inquisitors and fanatics when it comes to HP, and yes, they do say some uncommonly dumb things.<\/p>\n
So, for instance, we find the curious contradiction at the heart of a lot of Harry Hatred: the charge that the books are \u201cgnostic\u201d. What kills me is how this charge is established. When you point to John Granger\u2019s well-researched and thoroughly literate reading of the books which clearly demonstrates that they do not advocate salvation through \u201csecret knowledge\u201d (which is at the core of gnosticism), how do the Harry Haters respond? Basically, they complain that there\u2019s more to the spiritual life than Granger\u2019s fancy pants education, knowledge and training in reading literature. Michael O\u2019Brien\u2019s wave of spiritual nausea and the Harry Hater\u2019s \u201cgut instinct\u201d are more to be trusted. In short, we are to trust in their intuitive \u201csecret knowledge\u201d and not in facts and actual understanding of the text (of which many Harry Haters are proudly ignorant since they \u201cdon\u2019t read books on the occult\u201d and so have never actually read HP.<\/p>\n
Which brings me to the really fascinating thing: the amazing way in which, yet again, so-called \u201cconservative Catholics\u201d completely throw overboard the Church\u2019s intellectual tradition (which has traditionally never feared to engage ideas from \u201coutside the tribe\u201d in order to get at the question \u201cWhat is true?\u201d). Thomas has no fear of Aristotle the pagan and Averroes the Muslim. Today, he would be denounced as Impure by many \u201cconservative Catholics\u201d for not getting his information from Truly True Catholic sources and for daring to read texts from non-tribal members.<\/p>\n
Over at the Register blog, some people are seriously suggesting that there is something sinister about the fact that I disagree with some Catholic media folk about Harry Potter and are planning to complain that this disagreement is somehow scandalous. Their approach to the question is not \u201cWhat is true?\u201d but \u201cWho are my tribal elders who tell me what I want to hear?\u201d and \u201cHow can I muzzle ideas I dislike?\u201d It\u2019s pretty funny really. Especially since, yesterday, Fr. Brian Harrison, to my great surprise, weighed in on the \u201cHarry is not a big deal\u201d side and threw the Harry Haters into confusion. It is instructive to read, not just Fr. Harrison, but the response to him. First, Fr. Harrison:<\/p>\n
Dear XXXXXXXXX,<\/p>\n
Remember I was commenting to you during my visit about people who needlessly read deep, dark and diabolical meanings into Harry Potter?<\/p>\n
Well, The Remnant has a new \u201cexpos\u00e9\u201d of the terrible dangers of letting kids watch HP. Being a wizard, we are told, Harry is \u201ca man of evil\u201d, and so, along with friends Ron and Hermione, is careering along the road to Hell. On that basis, of course, there\u2019s a vast and centuries-old literature of fantasy tales and fairy stories that will have to be excised from every Christian home. This actually seems to me rather like a kind of new puritanism. (In fact, I believe the anti-Harry Potter publicity started in conservative Evangelical Protestant, not Catholic, circles.)<\/p>\n
The reason that attempts by real-life human beings to engage in magic and wizardry are sinful is basically because they attempt to procure and wield supernatural powers that God has not given to human beings. They represent, therefore, a sin as old as the Garden of Eden, the presumptuous quest to \u201cbe like God\u201d. But in Rowling\u2019s fictional fantasy world, Harry and his friends are not committing that sin at all. The distinction between them and ordinary \u201cmuggles\u201d like you and me is basic to the whole series of books, right from the first time our heroes vanish into the column of Platform 9 3\/4 at King\u2019s Cross Station in order to board the train for Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, Hermione etc., are not trying to arrogantly overreach themselves. For, unlike real-life human beings, they are depicted as being members of a distinct \u2018race\u2019 who are born as wizards, and so are just innocently fulfilling their own nature when they study and develop their inborn magical abilities. (Of course, Christian parents who let their kids read and see the HP fantasies should also make it clear, as part of their normal commitment to raising their children in accord with their baptismal promises, that we real human beings are not allowed to attempt magical feats, and should not be so gullible as to believe readily in claims of \u2018supernatural\u2019 effects of spells, potions, etc., made by New Agers, Wicca adepts, etc.)<\/p>\n
I went to see the final Harry Potter movie the other day, and didn\u2019t see anything \u201canti-Christian\u201d about it. I guess that just shows how naive I am: I don\u2019t realize I\u2019m being subconsciously assailed by all the \u201csymbols\u201d that will weaken my faith and morals without my knowing it!<\/p>\n
It reaches the point of absurdity when The Remnant\u2019s writer claims that there are \u201csymbols\u201d that indicate Harry loses his virginity in the course of his adventures. Never mind that Harry never does anything more than kiss a girl (fully clothed and standing up)! For we are assured that supposed \u201cphallic symbols\u201d hovering in the background will all subliminally send the message to adolescent viewers that Harry is now sexually active and that teen sex is therefore the way to go! Actually, for by far the greater part of the series, Harry, Ron and Hermione are presented \u2013 as you well know \u2013 just as comrades or buddies, with occasional squabbles but always basically very loyal. Which of course is a perfectly good model of friendship between adolescent boys and girls who are too young to start entering into serious romantic relationships. In the last two movies of the series, when our heroes are evidently around 17-18 years old, Harry gets a girlfriend who makes an occasional appearance, and Ron and Hermione fall in love. And, yes, they too hug and kiss once or twice (again, fully clothed and standing). OK, so what? There\u2019s no indication that they\u2019re having premarital sex. And in fact the epilogue depicts these two couples, 19 years after the final destruction of the evil Voldemort, as respectably married and with small kids. So the whole Harry Potter saga in fact ends on quite a pro-life, pro-family and pro-marriage note. Not exactly the parting message that the Church\u2019s mortal enemies would want to send to today\u2019s adolescents!<\/p>\n
At the bottom of this Remnant review you\u2019ll find an excerpt from one of the books that the critic tries to make out is some sort of subtly blasphemous, contemptuous mockery of the Holy Mass. I find it very hard to believe any Catholic kid is going to take away from this scene any subliminal anti-Eucharistic assault on his\/her faith. (And non-Catholic teens, who have little if any idea what the Catholic Mass is anyway, would be even less likely to draw any anti-Christian message out of this distasteful description of the rotting food at a ghost\u2019s \u201cdeath-day party\u201d.) I\u2019ll leave you to read the excerpt \u2013 which the columnist apparently considers Exhibit A for his case \u2013 and form your own opinion.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest weakness in this whole type of neo-puritan criticism of such modern fantasy books\/films is that today\u2019s kids are generally so ignorant of both Christianity and their own Western literary and cultural tradition that, even supposing the evil and perverse symbolism was deliberately intended by J.K. Rowling and L. Frank Baum (yes, even The Wizard of Oz is nefarious, occult propaganda, according to this Remnant columnist!), these modern kids would be quite incapable of recognizing it as such. Of course, the retort to this will be, \u201cAh, how naive you are! Of course they don\u2019t recognize it! That\u2019s why its so insidious and dangerous! For the symbolism will reach and corrupt them at a subconscious level!\u201d.<\/p>\n
The trouble is that you can only have buried in your subconscious something that you have previously consciously experienced and have now forgotten and\/or repressed. But hardly any of today\u2019s uncultured teenage viewers of Harry Potter would ever at any moment of their short lives have had any knowledge of these symbols! How many of these kids, for instance would ever have heard or read that a fish (Greek \u2018ICTHUS\u2019) was an ancient symbol of Christ? Therefore, how could a rotten fish at a \u201cghost\u2019s party\u201d possibly send such kids an insidious \u2018depth-charge\u2019 subliminal messsage that Christ is rotten and contemptible? And how many of these teenage viewers would ever have heard or known that a black cloth (like the one on the ghosts\u2019 malodorous dinner-table) was used for traditional funeral Masses in the Traditional Latin Catholic rite? (I didn\u2019t even know that myself till now \u2013 never having been to a funeral in the Traditional Rite!)<\/p>\n
Finally, even supposing these \u201csymbols\u201d were recognizable at the subsconcious level by the young viewers, where is the hard evidence that they do in fact have a corrupting influence on the faith or morals of the young? The puritanical critics\u2019 argument seems to be of an a priori nature: \u201cthe dark and occultic symbols are there in the Potter books and movies; therefore they must have a pernicious, anti-Christian effect on the young.\u201d But what you need here is a posteriori evidence and reasoning: e.g., a statistically significant sampling of kids who have fallen away from Christian faith or practice under circumstances where there is some clear cause-and-effect evidence that this was a result of watching or reading Harry Potter fantasies. (We\u2019ve had The Wizard of Oz around for more than 70 years now. Where are all the generations of kids whose faith and morals have been scarred for life by Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Woodman, the Wicked Witch of the West, and the anti-climactic little Wizard?)<\/p>\n
There are indeed plenty of people in the media today who want to corrupt and destroy Christian faith and morals among the young. But I think they are smart enough to realize that the best way to do this with today\u2019s kids is by unsubtle, unambiguous \u2018full-frontal\u2019 propaganda: TV shows and movies like South Park, Sex and the City, HBO, internet porn, blasphemous \u201cart \u201d works, shows that openly present priests and serious Christians in general as nerds, cowards, hypocrites and \u2018homophobic\u2019 bigots, and openly anti-Catholic books and movies like Last Temptation, The Da Vinci Code and Philip Pullman\u2019s noxious children\u2019s books (in which the villains are cloaked like Knights of Malta and turn out to be child-abusers belonging to a group entitled \u201cThe Magisterium\u201d), shows that present active homosexuals as heroes and regular, lovable folks, etc., etc.<\/p>\n
The real enemies of the Church, of our Lord and Savior, and of the natural moral law wouldn\u2019t waste their time dreaming up characters like Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore, who they would regard as very tame and ineffective emissaries for their cause, or indeed (more likely) as emissaries for the opposite cause and values springing from J.K. Rowling\u2019s own professed Christian faith. This is especially true, given that the message comes through loud and clear throughout the series that the Luciferian side in this struggle, represented by the diabolical Voldemort and his minions, is precisely the side Harry constantly battles against, and finally defeats.
God bless,<\/p>\n
Fr. Brian Harrison<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, the telling response:<\/p>\n
Fr. Brian Harrison:<\/p>\n
Since you seem to have some spare time\u2026 and since you seem to have spent much of your precious time on HP, would you please consider helping one of your fellow priests (Fr. Richard Heilman) understand HP?<\/p>\n
Obviously, he has some serious concerns about HP and hasn\u2019t had the luxury of time to spend reading\/watching\/writing that you have apparently had. Please, my friend, take some of your excessive free time and help him. I\u2019m sure he will be very grateful to you. Thanks\u2026 and God Bless.<\/p>\n
Fr. Richard Heilman: [I have to admit that up until I invited a very holy priest, Fr. Isaac Mary Relyea, to my parishes to give a Lenten Mission on the Four Last Things (listen here), I simply had never heard any of the warnings in regard to Harry Potter. And so, like any good pastor who is concerned for the spiritual well-being of his flock, I did some checking (via google). There it was \ufffd with little more than a ten minute search on the internet, I found concerns raised by none other than Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger), Cardinal Arinze, Cardinal Burke and the chief exorcist to Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth. See previous post).
Moreover, I was not prepared for the inordinate intensity of push-back on this topic. I was simply stunned by the over-the-top outrage toward someone who simply wanted to warn others about the potential spiritual dangers of HP. Frankly, it was in the realm of creepy to me, because it was so very intense. It left me wondering if the supernatural was involved here.
Fair warning to pastors \ufffd your choice to broach this subject will, in all likelihood, bring assaults that are severe and personal. For me, I simply chose to pick other battles for now \ufffd I did not feel it was worth going to war over this while there are seemingly endless things to warn our flocks about. In the meantime, I plan to do more research to see why these most prominent Roman Catholic Church figures are warning us about HP.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What\u2019s interesting to me is how the person posting the note from Fr. Heilman makes no effort whatsoever to engage what Fr. Harrison says. He simply appeals to several authorities whom he deems to be tribal elders of the Harry Hater faction and thinks that\u2019s enough. What strikes me is how postmodern it is. There is no faith at all in the Church\u2019s intellectual tradition and the believe that you can actually get at the truth of things by means of evidence and argument. Instead, the approach is to appeal to bogus authority (the bunkum that Benedict \u201ccondemned\u201d Harry Potter), dubious authority (Fr. Gabriele Amorth\u2019s sketchy pontifications of books of which he is wholly ignorant), Cardinal Burke (who relies completely on Fr. Amorth), and Cardinal Arinze (who likewise relies completely on what he\u2019s picked up through the grapevine). Beyond that, we have an appeal to Fr. Heilman\u2019s \u201ccreepy feeling\u201d. It\u2019s an interesting picture of Catholics relying on hunches, but that\u2019s about it. What\u2019s interesting is that the reader who posts it seems to think that (as with Granger, who has actually taken the time to read and analyze the books and not just go on hearsay) Fr. Harrison is the one at fault for knowing what he is talking about and not just falling into line and parrotting the hearsay.<\/p>\n
In short, there seems to be an actual celebration of anti-intellectualism and a hostility to using one\u2019s brain to *think*. This is not, obviously, a problem that is strictly limited to Harry Potter and is a troubling symptom. And pointing it out is dangerous in current tribal climate, since to mention it is to invite cries of \u201celitist\u201d from ignorami and postmoderns who abandon the possibility of discovering truth through argument and evidence while trusting their \u201cgut\u201d or the argument from authority (the weakest of all arguments, according to St. Thomas) as the basis for their views on things much weightier that HP.<\/p>\n