LOL - Shakespeare wasn't glamorizing witchcraft in MacBeth and his work wasn't directly marketed to children.
Harry Potter and friends, however, are characters that children may wish to emulate. Creating curiosity about witchcraft draws the impressionable viewer (read: children) away from holiness.
It's disingenuous to support Harry Potter, blast the pope, and then complain that the mass media is indoctrinating our children into accepting homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle. Witchcraft is evil, too, but not in this case? This is aking to saying homosexuality is evil, but not in the case of "Will and Grace" because it's such a well-written show.
Lord of the Rings was written as an allegory for salvation history. Tolkien said as much and was a devout Catholic who had a close friendship with the great theologian, C.S. Lewis. It's not comparable.
"One of the greatest plays in English literature is about witches and witchcraft - It's called Macbeth. Perhaps the Pope never heard of it."
Macbeth is all about human weakness, and how that leads us into evil.
Shakespeare, who lived in a culture that believed in witches, used them *briefly* for color and to advance the story. It's in no way accurate to say that it is "about witches and witchcraft."
This is rather foolish. Ratzinger didn't come out against all fantasy literature in his two 2-sentence notes to Gabriele Koby. He didn't even come out against all Harry Potter. Essentially, he sent a couple of polite notes to a lady who sent him her book--- and en passant, he doesn't even say that he's read Koby's book!
Please. Joseph Ratzinger is known to be deeply read in the literature of seven European languages. I very much doubt that he's taking a naive Mrs. Grundy approach here.
I think we all know what mischief the headline-writers are up to here. What I'd like to know is what Koby had to say.
What happened when Macbeth consulted the witches and witchcraft? Were he and his wife rewarded? Or did bad things happen because of it. The answer is that bad things happened because of it. What resulted was murder and untimely death as well as neurosis and psychosis. When literature properly inserts such questions into a moral framework that judges them accordingly, this is not wrong. "Macbeth" hardly comes off as an endorsment of occult practices.
I believe the article's title is an overstatement. Ratzinger, in effect, instructed her to contact an underlig to investigate her concerns, which he deemed valid.
Harry Potter is, to my mind, "PG." With proper parental guidance and discussion of the issues which it brings up, it can be morally harmless and simply another work of interesting literature. The "good magic" in Harry Potter is easily discernable from occultism by a mature teenager. However, the subject of the book does require a parent to discuss what wicca is, ad to draw that differentiation. It is good versus evil, but with a problemmatic definition of good (albeit a good definition of evil).
I find your reference to MacBeth a gross stretch. In Potter, the recourse to magic is good and in fact, necessary and heroic. In MacBeth, it is purely evil.
Also to contrast with Narnia and Lord of the Rings, two spiritually beneficial stories: In Narnia, the children are forbidden to do magic, except those magics which they are explicitly told to do by Aslan. The point is to obey Aslan's will, whereas in Harry Potter, lying and disobedience with regards to magicare morally necessary; the authorities are sometimes bumbling incompetents. Harry Potter displays extremely mature morality dangerously combined with the use of magic. In Narnia, on the other hand, magic could almost be seen as sacramental: that which is commanded by Aslan/Christ is salvific; that which is otherwise is evil.
The Lord of the Rings' main theme is the rejection of illicit power, represented by the rings, which wards one away from occultism.