Pope Opposes Harry Potter Novels - Signed Letters from Cardinal Ratzinger Now Online

RIMSTING, Germany, July 13, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - LifeSiteNews.com has obtained and made available online copies of two letters sent by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was recently elected Pope, to a German critic of the Harry Potter novels. In March 2003, a month after the English press throughout the world falsely proclaimed that Pope John Paul II approved of Harry Potter, the man who was to become his successor sent a letter to a Gabriele Kuby outlining his agreement with her opposition to J.K. Rowling's offerings. (See below for links to scanned copies of the letters signed by Cardinal Ratzinger.)

As the sixth issue of Rowling's Harry Potter series - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - is about to be released, the news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed serious reservations about the novels is now finally being revealed to the English-speaking world still under the impression the Vatican approves the Potter novels.

In a letter dated March 7, 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger thanked Kuby for her "instructive" book Harry Potter - gut oder böse (Harry Potter- good or evil?), in which Kuby says the Potter books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy.

"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," wrote Cardinal Ratzinger.

The letter also encouraged Kuby to send her book on Potter to the Vatican prelate who quipped about Potter during a press briefing which led to the false press about the Vatican support of Potter. At a Vatican press conference to present a study document on the New Age in April 2003, one of the presenters - Fr. Peter Fleedwood - made a positive comment on the Harry Potter books in response to a question from a reporter. Headlines such as "Pope Approves Potter" (Toronto Star), "Pope Sticks Up for Potter Books" (BBC), "Harry Potter Is Ok With The Pontiff" (Chicago Sun Times) and "Vatican: Harry Potter's OK with us" (CNN Asia) littered the mainstream media.

In a second letter sent to Kuby on May 27, 2003, Cardinal Ratzinger "gladly" gave his permission to Kuby to make public "my judgement about Harry Potter."

The most prominent Potter critic in North America, Catholic novelist and painter Michael O'Brien commented to LifeSiteNews.com on the "judgement" of now-Pope Benedict saying, "This discernment on the part of Benedict XVI reveals the Holy Father's depth and wide ranging gifts of spiritual discernment." O'Brien, author of a book dealing with fantasy literature for children added, "it is consistent with many of the statements he's been making since his election to the Chair of Peter, indeed for the past 20 years - a probing accurate read of the massing spiritual warfare that is moving to a new level of struggle in western civilization. He is a man in whom a prodigious intellect is integrated with great spiritual gifts. He is the father of the universal church and we would do well to listen to him."

Many thanks for your kind letter of February 20th and the informative book which you sent me in the same mail. 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.

I would like to suggest that you write to Mr. Peter Fleedwood, (Pontifical Council of Culture, Piazza S. Calisto 16, I00153 Rome) directly and to send him your book.

Somehow your letter got buried in the large pile of name-day , birthday and Easter mail. Finally this pile is taken care of, so that I can gladly allow you to refer to my judgment about Harry Potter.

Links to the scanned copies of the two signed letters by Cardinal Ratzinger (in German) - In PDF format: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005_docs/ratzingerletter.pdf http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005_docs/ratzingerpermission.pdf

Wow what a bunch of spam. OK let's look at it.

By the time Harry is "invited" it is established he's ALREADY a wizard, they're just going to teach him to control it. He isn't an "initiate" he's already a wizard just one who doesn't know what that means or how to control it, the "witchcraft" he's learning is how to control powers he already has and will have whether or not he attends Hogwarts, what's wrong with learning to conquer fear Winston Churchill thought conquering fear was useful.

Actually the first book is called "Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone" which is a long reputed object that grants immortality. The title was changed for America because they thought American kids might think it had something to do with philosophy.

But all those books are teaching HP wizards how to control powers they already have, nothing having to do with real occult.

Incorrect, it's established in Book 2 that the school exists in the real world and can be gotten to by means other than the train. It's not on the astral plane, it's in England. The rooms in the school don't move around, the stairs move around so the path to get to a room changes.

They also have parallels to a boarding school, which is what Hogwarts is. Also there's parallels to corporate structure, and military structure. That's just how people organize themselves and have organized themselves for the entire recorded length of human history.

Harry doesn't learn any of that occult magic. He learns how to control powers he already has. It's well established in the books that he is accidentally and unconsiously casting spells before he even knows there are wizards.

Boarding school organize in houses. And again Hogwarts doesn't exist on the astral plane. And none of the mascots are a good match for water or fire.

Harry has a spellbook? He has school texts sure, but no spellbook.

Voldemort, the bad guy, wants the Philosopher's Stone because he thinks that the key to eternal life will be helpful in regaining a body. He's the bad guy, they do bad things, but his bad things have no resemblance to real occult.

There's no "will in action" in HP. Yes he breaks a lot of rules, but that's a standard part of much YA especially mystery solving YA (which the early books of HP very much are). A vital part of the mystery YA formula since the days of The Hardy Boys is someone needs to tell the kids not to investigate that which they're going to investigate during the story. No "will in action" just a way to build in additional threat until the faceless bad guy is revealed, and to create redherring ideas of who the bad guy is.

Oooh, two counts of redundancy, so much better than redundancy all by itself.

The people who lied to Harry about how his parents were killed were people that don't like wizards. And his parents were psychically murdered, they were magically murdered. So far we haven't seen any psychic powers in HP.

The pets aren't familiar spirits. The only use they've had in anybody's spells are as targets of transmutation, they don't actually store the wizards' power or help them use it. Not familiars, pets, and postmen.

The portrait hole is just a door with a magical security system. Dosn't move people around in planes, just gets them from one room to an ajoining room. Just like the badge access doors I deal with at work everyday.

Harry uses quill pen, ink and parchment to do all his writing at Hogwarts, wizards aren't into ballpoints and Mead binders for some reason.

Quirrell's master is Voldemort, the bad guy, he does bad guy things, that's what bad guys do.

That quote is from Voldemort, the bad guy, establishing just what a nasty bad guy he really is.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Not sure why these guys think Churchill was a cultist.

Here their own argument works against them. Harry broke the rules and was barely punished. As they say Occultists NEVER break that rule, Harry did, guess that must mean he's not a cultist.

Basilisks are a major creature in mythology. Those passages are just dealing with a mythic creature, which there are plenty of in HP.

Never saw Hand of Glory, it's not in Mugglenet. Of course it's well established in HP that bad guys are bad.

Voldemort's a bad guy, it wasn't a psychic attack.

This wasn't an occult war on the spiritual level, it's not a psychic metaphor. It was a real war they fought in the real world.

Dementors were Voldemort's best allies, they're bad guys, they do bad guy things.

Wrong kind of bond. Not a bond of debt but a bond of loyalty. In many societies they consider saving someone's life to be creating a spiritual bond between the two people.

It's not familiar magic, he can just talk to snakes.

It's not a psychic attack, his Aunt is a big fat gas bag and he made her bigger fatter and gassier. She earned it, out in reality saying stuff like she said would get a person popped in the nose, that's all Harry really did.

What are they called in the occult world. Never heard of anything like it. But again we're left to wonder why these guys think it's so important everybody be terrified all the time. Conquering fear is an important part of being a successful adult.

Dementors are bad guys, they do bad guy things.

So once again we see all the arguments against Hp are based on half truths, blatant misinterpretations, outright lies, and trying to cast the things bad guys in the books say and do as good and acceptable in the HP world. 100% bulldada. Which is 100% typical of the condemning crowd.

>> 1) The majority of the detractors on this thread are against HP because of the witchcraft. Take that out and most of them wouldn't care ~or wouldn't know~ of Harry's moral dilemmas. <<

YOu can't isolate those issues. Harry Potter is in the unusual position of making such exceptional moral decisions because of his own powers, and the powers of his opponents. Get rid of the witchcraft, and the moral dilemmas (as well as the plots) disappear. Besides, we're talking about Ratzinger's objections, not the objections of the fundamentalist types who also reject Lewis and Tolkein, so I disagree with your premise.

>>. 2) As far as children not understanding Harry's morality, I think you underestimate most children who are capable of reading these books. <<

I rated them "PG:" Parental Guidance is required for the books, to ENSURE the morality is understood, and to FORTIFY, HIGHLIGHT and CLARIFY the moral distinctions even when they are intuitively understood.

>> And, when Harry breaks the rules, for the right or wrong reasons, there are always consequences.<<

Not really. The teacher strictly forbade flying on the broomsticks until they had been instructed, threatening permanent expulsion. Harry Potter went ahead and did it anyway, with weak justification, and was barely slapped on the wrist.

(I did appreciate that the "snitch" was rewarded at the end of the Sorcerer's stone.)

"saying that Harry Potter books make the occult look attractive is akin to saying the same about magic shows"

Funny how you think people who disapprove of HP are failing to make a distinction, and yet you don't make that obvious one.

"Your interpretation of my statement may be the one that's false."

No, you clearly took my statement to mean that everything that is fun is Satanic, when I merely said that many things that are Satanic look like fun.

"But remember, it was you, not I, who associated fun with the Devil."

To say that set A is a subset of set B is not to say that every member of set B is a member of set A. Basic logic.

"I personally think that it could smack of self righteousness to go around condemning the books as satanic."

Then you don't know where the boundaries of self-righteousness are.

"I will withdraw the sentence about self righteousness, except to acknowledge, as you do, its existence."

Thank you.

"Hey, Mr. DSC, you implied that those who enjoyed or approve of Harry Potter books are seduced by the Devil."

No, I agreed with the Holy Father that children with unformed consciences who read HP are at risk of being subtly influenced.

"Talk about an assumption of bad motives!"

I didn't imply that everyone who fails to understand the risks is "seduced by the Devil," but even if I had, that would be to imply that they were victims, not that they had bad motives.

"Let me quickly say that I think it generally inappropriate for Freepers to label other freepers as liberals or leftists in place of actually arguing against their points."

Let me quickly repeat the remark to which that replies: "I guess it's like Robert Bork said in 'Slouching Toward Gomorrah,' we're all contaminated by leftism to some degree."

If you will examine that a little more closely, I think you will see that it does not lable anyone as a leftist or a liberal, but rather agrees with one of the great minds of our time that we (the word "we" includes the speaker, you'll note) are all to some degree contaminated.

"I plead innocent, btw..."

Sorry, the court finds you guilty of being contaminated by leftism in that you have adopted their trait of presuming bad motives on the part of those who disagree.

And a friend of mine accuses me of being contaminated by leftism in that I think I'm entitled to my veteran's benefits.

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