Harry Potter and the Chair of Peter (Lead us not into temptation has meaning to Benedict XVI.)

The American Prowler ^ | 7/14/2005 | J. Peter Freire

[SoothingDave]

Nancy Drew was an evil seductress who should have stayed home and baked cookies for the Hardy Boys.

Not until she got a ring.

SD

[xzins]

LOL!

Terzactly!

Now...wouldn't you warn your kids about that one?!!???

[little jeremiah]

I found it transparently clear. Especially when compared to LOTR and the Narnia books.

[DTogo]

No warning needed. That high-tax, pro-abortion, anti-war, Liberal nonsense was a lead balloon in our house from the get go. We all still laugh when we see Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers, and I'm not always the one to spot them first, or laugh first.

[ArGee]

Um... competent parenting? Demonizing the Harry Potter series is utter nonsense.

Haven't seen much competent parenting, so I wouldn't know. But competent reading would be valuable. The Pope hasn't demonized Harry Potter. What he has done is encouraged competent parenting. WOW! Who woulda thunk it.

Ideas aren't bad in themselves. But children can't read critically. The Pope has made a statement to parents that Potter does not enforce Christian truths. Competent parents will take the Pope's comment, read the Potter books themselves, and discuss them with their children. Truly competent parents would not wait for the Pope's statement.

Words have meanings. I read the first Harry Potter book. It made me weep for the reading level of our culture. I thought it stank. But saying that is not the same as demonizing the book.

Maybe you are reacting to something other than this article, but this article and the Pope didn't demonize anything.

Except those who have a knee-jerk reaction to anyone saying something negative about Harry Potter.

Shalom.

[ArGee]

What are these people going to advocate next -- burn books.

What is with these knee-jerk over-reactions to anything negative said about Harry Potter? This article didn't even come close to suggesting the books be burned or even that Catholics shouldn't let their kids read them.

This article did remind parents that children's books aren't always innocent and that good parents dicuss the books with their children from the point of view of the faith.

Shalom.

[ArGee]

The books are entertaining -- guess I am not into the mode of looking for hidden meanings and neither are my kids.

You might want to start.

When I was young the TV didn't show married people in bed together. Now if two people are dating the TV will make it clear they are sleeping together. Guess what? You can't even begin to tell kids that they should wait until marriage because they have no model for that. Truth be told, most adults probably wouldn't know how to date anymore without sex. Why? Was it because of some cabal that decided to eradicate sexual morality from our culture? No, it was because nobody asked whether we should really be watching this as TV headed toward the sewer.

We have now been conditioned in exactly the subversive manner suggested by this article.

Maybe there is nothing in Potter to condition people to, but you should always be asking yourself, "How will what my child is watching or reading reinforce or challenge what I am trying to teach?" And you should be teaching your child to read and watch with a critical eye to the messages that challenge what you taught them.

Shalom.

[PhiKapMom]

Sorry if I offended any Catholic because I didn't mean to broadbrush everyone -- only a few! :) Have you read these threads -- might as well put a scarlet letter on the forehead of the author. It is not just Catholics as was pointed out -- it is also Evangelicals and others. Next time I will use some and I should have put the word Church Leaders because that it where a lot of this is coming from recently in threads on here. But it was about the Pope who is Catholic and the Vatican went after the DaVinci code and some of the Catholics on here came after me for liking the book. IOTW, I got irritated and posted without thinking.

When the first Potter book came out, the minister of the church where my son USED to attend went on a rampage about Harry Potter books and had a few not so nice words to say about anyone that read them. My son got up and walked out of church. He is in graduate school to become an English professor with a specialty of medieval literature so the attack did not set well -- some of his students in Comp I last fall used the Harry Potter books to write their essays and some were really good -- very articulate. He hadn't read Harry Potter until this minister went off the deep end -- now he has read them all and said they are books to read for pleasure nothing more.

I have always taken an interest in what my kids read from the time they were little when I read to them several times a day. I still have some of those books memorized BTW. One thing I instilled in all three of my children was that reading is fun -- none of them ever believed books like Harry Potter were real -- they have known the difference because they were taught right from wrong and fact from fiction.

My kids and I don't need to be told by any church leader what we shouldn't read and I said "any" which means all!

Probably wouldn't have said Catholics but I was slammed by the thought police on the DaVinci code because I dared like the book which is a work of fiction. My two daughters enjoyed it as well and in fact my oldest daughter is the one who bought it for me. Note I said "fiction" which means it is not fact.

Guess you can put me in the category of parents should take responsibility of explaining to young children about books and difference from fact and fiction and let the children enjoy a fantasy world -- maybe there wouldn't be so many uptight folks if they had enjoyed reading books as children. That doesn't mean I approve or some of the social engineering books out from the gay and liberal communities. That's where a parent enters the picture IMO. I am talking about books of fiction that are fun to read. I can remember getting so engrossed in the Nancy Drew books when I was a kid it was like I was her solving the mystery. It was fun and spent a lot of time reading those books and others including being at the library when the new one was put on the shelf.
Scarlet letter was banned from schools and had to be 16 in order to check the book out at the library from behind the counter so that is what my Mom, who is a senior citizen today, read when she turned 16 because she wanted to see why it was banned. Some schools have banned Huck Finn while others have it on the required reading list for literature classes in high school. Long rant over! :)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the ping to all your great insights!

I'm an oldtimer now and not faced with what to do with my children in today's culture - but it seems to me if I were raising kids, I'd make it a point to know all the lyrics in pop music, the story lines in the books their peers are reading, the movies they like and so on.

Whereas I could keep my own kids from reading/hearing such things at home, they would be exposed to them every time they stepped out the door. So I'd want to discuss all the pop stuff with them all the time.

Moreover, I'd try to guide my kids to draw their own conclusions so they wouldn't be simply parroting me. After all, someday they would hit that "coming of age" point where they question every view I expressed anyway. So, "let's question it now."

[grellis]

I agree with you 100%--it is nonsense. Our family goes to the bookstore and the library frequently--usually more than once a week. I have never personally seen a parent, child in hand, buying a HP book and a book on witchcraft. At least twice I have seen a parent buying a HP book and the Chronicles of Narnia.

My nearly 8-year old and I are staying out late tomorrow to get HP at midnight, and we're getting the Narnia series as well--I haven't read them since childhood.

My nutshell take on the whole "controversy": Good parenting is what teaches a child about good and evil. If the child has that foundation, the parent need not fear literature.

[grellis]

Probably wouldn't have said Catholics but I was slammed by the thought police on the DaVinci code because I dared like the book which is a work of fiction.

Sorry you got a hard time about that--completely undeserved. It's not as if the DaVinci Code is shelved under the "Religious Works" banner.

It is fiction, folks, just like HP. If we adults, we parents especially, can't keep that straight then we're doing our children a disservice.

[SuziQ]

So it sounds like Cardinal Ratzinger was not 'denouncing' Harry Potter, he simply made a statement in response to a question about an article in which some woman was railing about the books that we need to be careful about what we read. What enters our minds, can influence us, if we are able to be influenced. Sounds like good advice, but I and my kids have all ready Harry Potter. We have discussed them, and our Faith has not been shaken by them.

I don't think that Pope Benedict spares one thought for Harry Potter, and the idea that he has come out full force and denounced the books is preposterous!

[Saigon68]

You should be much more concerned with your child coming into contact with a public school employee; collectively they've assaulted 4.5 million children over a 10 year period. Harbor any contmept for those pedophiles or do you reserve that broad paint brush for <1% of Catholic Priests?

Ah, moral relativism . First sign you have no argument at all.

As for <1% figure. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own statistics. That's the second sign you have no argument at all.

[Saigon68]

Get a grip, toots

Spoken like a good practicing Catholic. A great man who recently left us warned of: "Basic courtesy and respect for others becoming an option rather than an obligation." Looking at many of your posts I see you have opted out altogether.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

LOL. Exactly correct. Great analogy.

Just ask that old unitarian shaman, Joseph Campbell, about the "Power of Myth."

Joseph Campbell: Unitarian Saint?

"Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are wind and confusion." -- Isaiah 41:29

"For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God." -- Ecclesiastes 5:7

"Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD." -- Psalms 34:11

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." -- Philippians 4:8

"All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them...I and my Father are one." -- John 10:8,30.

[DTogo]

Good parenting is what teaches a child about good and evil. If the child has that foundation, the parent need not fear literature.

Well said!!

[VegasCowboy]

I too had a love of reading as a kid. I attribute a lot of my success in high school and college to the amount of reading I did prior to that. Most of the books I read were very much in the fantasy genre, and were filled with magic and other occultish stuff. I found it very entertaining to escape the "real world" and enter these alternate universes.

I haven't read Harry Potter, and I certainly don't have a problem with the Pope's warning. But I do have a hard time understanding those who feel kids will be influenced away from Christianity by reading books of pure fantasy. If a child grows up in a Christian home, and if the parents reinforce Christian beliefs on a daily basis, I can't imagine any child suddenly turning to Wicca because of story. Most kids who read HP probably don't even know Wicca is a "religion," and view it as they should: good clean fun.

[dmc8576]

Great Post. Totally agree.

[DameAutour]

BUMP to great post

[dmc8576]

I'm glad you further explained your statement. But I still don't see where the leader of a church telling his following about a book should make you so angry. I think one of the problems the church has had has been the lack of strong church leadership that stands up against the cultural relativist tidal wave. That is why I am so happy about the rise of the Evangelical movement. Culture no longer dictates religion; the Gospel and Jesus Christ do.

Enough of that religion talk. Back to Harry Potter. You said: "My kids and I don't need to be told by any church leader what we shouldn't read and I said "any" which means all!"

I don't know if you are Catholic (I assume not since you earlier stereotyped them all), or even if you are Christian, but why are you offended when the leader of a different church tells his church's following what to do, especially when he is doing it out of good faith and honestly held beliefs that go back to biblical teachings. A warning to parents (probably aimed to parents of young children, not those with children who are professors in college) should not anger anyone. I am relieved that there is leadership in the church that won't be steamrolled by the left and the current cultural fads.

Last statement off Harry Potter. The Da Vinci Code. You mention it as another Harry Potter-like victim of the Vatican overstepping its bounds. But do you remember the tidal wave it caused. TV specials were constantly airing "Did Jesus Have a Wife". I agree it was a fiction book, but people were not treating it as such. It needed responding to.

And are the "thought police" in your eyes people who stand up for what they believe in, not through censorship or bans, but as warnings to parents? Or are the thought police those that want to discredit anything that Christian conservatives, whether Evangelicals or Catholics, say not on merit but on hyperbole, insults, and attacks?