Posted on 07/13/2005 12:49:13 AM PDT by dsc
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."
English translations of the two letters by Cardinal Ratzinger follow:
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Vatican City March 7, 2003
Esteemed and dear Ms. Kuby!
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.
Sincere Greetings and Blessings,
+ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
=======================
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Vatican City May 27, 2003
Esteemed and dear Ms. Kuby,
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.
Sincere Greetings and Blessings,
+ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
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
jhw
There's a happy thought.
I agree with your assessment. And would add to it the quest for personal power made to seem as the be-all and end-all of goals. To control others, events, surroundings. To be master, could I say - to be Lord.
It was a spoiler for me too, although I had heard hints of it already. That's what I get for waiting so long to read it!
***God is what I call an alien intelligence with the ability to manipulate reality through scientific methods we do not understand yet.***
What is your basis for this belief?
My wife finally gave me a math formula that can solve everything that the likes of I am ever going to run into.
A/B = C/D
'Course, that's really from geometry, which I was good at, but I feel lucky to have come away from my education with something of value ;-) I do pretty much everthing with that formula.
Yes, true, there are things, most of the good ones, that cannot be achieved without hard work.
Seems more reasonable than the belief that British Public Schools are organized on the basis of occult groups. And I didn't see you question that one.
But they AREN'T feeding children a steady stream of occult laced entertainment. That's my point, you're WRONG, the sole source of damage is people protesting things that are supposedly occult laced and driving people away because of their falsehoods.
They ARE wrong, I'm not being generous at all, THEY'RE the ones being overly generous finding occult behind every rock. They're filtering every thing through the ASSumption of occult and are forced to perform grotesque and absurd re-interpretations of everything to make it fit their preconceived and illconsidered notions. Example: the mirror is clearly NOT an example of authentic occult imagery and even if it was it's clearly portrayed in a negative light. I discounted it because you are wrong, it is not occult and even if it were it is not pro-occult.
It's not heroic, misplaced or overblown. I'm standing for the TRUTH because that's what people are supposed to do. I never said the media are my friend, I'm simply saying that the people saying HP has real world occult imagery and presents it in a possitive light are wrong on both counts, media be damned it's the PROTESTORS that are full of crap in this. My real enemy is anyone that lies, media, protestor, don't care it doesn't matter; willful misrepresentation of the truth, whatever that truth is, puts people in the enemies column.
I can vouch for every item in the list, they're all junk. Blatant misrepresentations and outright lies about the contents of the books.
No it is not a sound interpretation, the issue that HP is occult in nature can easily be argued against because it plainly and obviously is not. The lengths to which the people saying it does have to stretch the reality shows it.
There are no familiars in the books. That's a LIE from your list. Yes that issue stands out because it is a blatant untruth with ZERO grounding in the actual books.
Scientifically? Nothing, really. Mostly just my conclusions. The God of the Judeo-Christian Bible doesn't really make sense to me, as written.
Well, then I guess that is fine. More than half the U.S. citizens don't care.
LOL! I have to steal the graphic.
Have a good vacation.
People waited in line for her too.
Take a look at this essay.
The writer even quotes my old professor:
That Marie Corelli was such a phenomenally popular author of the times comes as something of a shock to most students of literature, for her novels are today considered, in the words of one biographer, to be nothing more than "well-written tosh." Yet it is impossible to ignore the hard facts: more than half of her thirty books became world bestsellers, translated into virtually every European language, as well as many Asian languages. In 1906, at the peak of her success, over 100,000 copies of her books were sold — more than those sold by H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling combined.Corelli’s fame demonstrates that her novels undoubtedly reflected the tastes of the mass reading public at that time, in England and abroad. But it reveals even more than this; it allows us, as Corelli critic Richard Kowalczyk puts it, "to understand popular culture at the turn of the century, its common feelings, moral preferences, and psychological needs."
The irony in all of this is that Corelli wrote "fantasy" escapist fiction remarkably similar to...well, you know.
It is fantasy, like Grimms Fairy Tales, Aesops fables.
Certainly children today are not that fragile that they cannot separate fantasy from reality.
the only people in the books that consider personal power to be the ultimate goal are the bad guys. They're bad guys, they're supposed to be evil.
For shame! Do a little research into state history. We were given our fearsome nickname by folks from Ohio.
***And I didn't see you question that one.***
Ummm... I'm not the thread moniter here.
Touche!
Oh darn. I was hoping someone would make it into a musical.
***I'm simply saying that the people saying HP has real world occult imagery and presents it in a possitive light are wrong on both counts, ***
See post 51
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