Harry Potter is Dangerous for Both You and Your Children

Mary Immaculate Queen ^ | 12-16-01 | Fr. Casimir Puskorius, CMRI,

[mlizzy]

Adapted from a Sermon of Fr. Casimir Puskorius, CMRI, 3rd Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2001

On the First Sunday of Lent every year, we read in the Gospel of the devil tempting Our Lord. First he tries to tempt Him to gluttony, and Our Lord resists. Of course, Our Lord, because He is God, cannot be inclined to sin. But the devil, not knowing that, first tries to tempt Him to gluttony, and then to pride and power and materialism. He says to Our Lord, “Why don’t you throw yourself off this high elevation? God will save you.” Our Lord refuses. Then the devil pulls out his trump card. He shows Our Lord all the glory of the world and says, “I will give all this to you, if you will just bow down and worship me.” Of course, Our Lord refuses again. What the devil was saying here, in a sense, was “I’ll give you magic to do something that is not morally right, but it’s something you would enjoy.”

It should be evident to us, my dear parishioners, that the devil is after each one of us, tempting us in similar manner to sin and to pride. These temptations take different forms, so we must be on our guard. The devil is trying to tempt us away from serving God, from obeying God’s commandments. He is so crafty, so subtle, that often you don’t even know, unless you are very careful, how he is insinuating himself.

I believe it my duty to talk to you today about a series of books and its accompanying movie because I believe that they contain an insinuation of pride and ungodliness. I think you know what I am talking about: the Harry Potter series. I will speak both about the books and the movie, because if one reads the books, he will want to see the movie, and vice versa. I believe there are some real problems here, real spiritual danger — possibly grave spiritual danger. I will explain why. Believe me, I have refrained from saying anything about this for a long time. When the books first came out, I began to gather information on them. I wanted to analyze them to see whether or not they were good for children to be reading, and to write an article for The Reign of Mary. I haven’t said anything up to this time because I wanted to study the matter, rather than say yes or no before I knew what I was talking about.

Let me also preface this explanation by saying that I speak now from the consciousness that one day I will have to answer to God for how I accomplished my duty to instruct you in matters of faith and morals. I certainly believe that there are matters of faith and morals involved in this particular matter.

The first problem I would like to point out are the words that are so casually used in the books and in the movie, words that are so casually used that children may start using them — yet these words are matter of mortal sin. Specifically, I am referring to such words as: sorcery, witchcraft, casting spells, communicating with the dead (necromancy). The Catholic Church very clearly tells us that these are mortal sins, and they must not be presented as though they are something permissible to try. I believe it is the devil trying to insinuate himself through the medium of human beings, trying to draw us away from Christ. These are not your usual Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Remember that children do not have the same critical ability that adults have. They read fantasy much differently than we do: they read it in a believing way.

Continue reading here.

[mlizzy]

What else is there to say?

Thank you Tax-chick. Now, can I go get me some cookies and rice milk? It's d*** near time for bed. Er, maybe I should just grab a beer ...

[Tax-chick]

I’m unfamiliar with Rice Milk. Boil some rice?

[Tax-chick]

Maybe it depends on the service. I remember my dad talking about D&D going on in the carriers in the 80s, but PC games are much bigger now On a carrier, there’s probably still a pencil-and-paper-and-dice group or twenty, but a CG cutter has only a couple of hundred crew, and they work like dogs.

Anoreth and Tom, who are more alike than they want to believe, both enjoy online text roleplaying, which is basically a group of posters writing a piece of fiction together. Good for the typing skills, grammar, and imagination.

[Politicalmom]

HEY!! Don’t bash 80s pop!! I get enough of that from my Philistine children.

[sitetest]

Dear netmilsmom,

The chief exorcist of Rome is “a random priest”? He is not someone with real knowledge and experience of the demonic, of evil? Wow. As the chief exorcist of Rome, he is the exorcist of the pope's diocese.

You're comparing the chief exorcist of Rome with Fr. Pfleger? Wow.

“While not infallible, Vatican officials have more authority to speak on matters which are their specialty.”

Yes, and the Pontifical Council on Culture has as its specialty is not film or book reviews, but rather, in a theological sense, how the Church interacts with culture, the various cultures of the world, and to study indifference in religion. The mandate of this council is to promote cooperation and understanding between those who are not believers but who are open to engagement with the Church. It isn't to determine the moral acceptability of individual works of literature.

Even so, you're elevating spontaneous remarks made by a priest in an interview to the level of authoritative teaching.

“Are you saying that Father Pfleger has just as much authority to speak on Catholicism as a Vatican official?”

When Fr. Pfleger isn't flogging heresy, when he is offering his prudential judgment (and that's all we're talking about here - prudential judgment of different priests), an appeal to authority isn't the appropriate response. Rather, an appeal to reason, to objective teaching, to rational argument. The problem with Fr. Pfleger isn't that he isn't an authority, but rather that he is disobedient to his bishop and that much of the stuff he says is lunatic, evil, or even against the authoritative teachings of the Church.

“It’s a very slippery slope.”

Only when one has greased the soles and heels of one’s shoes.

sitetest

[mlizzy]

I’m unfamiliar with Rice Milk. Boil some rice?

I do not know how it gets in the container at the health food store. I think it's "magic."

I do make my own almond milk though, and it's way incredible. Place fresh raw almonds in water and soak them for a "spell." Then blend them (1 cup to 4 cups water) at high speed. Strain that glop in cheesecloth, throw the milk portion back in the blender, add some agave, almond extract, pinch of salt, and it's a glutton's dream. Love the stuff. Keeps me in the Confessional. :)

[little jeremiah]

Have you ever soaked the almonds first?

I often soak raw almonds overnight just to eat ‘em soaked. They taste almost like fresh coconut. I bet they’d blend easier. Come to think of it, decades ago I used to soak almonds and sunflower seeds and blend the next morning (no straining) add sweetener and a banana and drink it for breakfast. It was good!

[Tax-chick]

It sounds like a lot of protein! I’m not that fond of almonds, but I bought a package of Slivered to make a Weight Watchers substitute for green bean casserole for Thanksgiving. Otherwise we’d have no green vegetables at all, only starch!

I know they sell rice milk and almond milk at our health food store. I need to go there for fresh-ground peanuts; I’m spending way too much on Smucker’s All Natural Chunky at Walmart. My husband and sons go through pounds of it!

[Tax-chick]

That sounds perfect for Pat, the boy we can’t get enough calories down. Get those natural fats and oils in! I’ll bet it would go down with vanilla extract, too.

[mlizzy]

Yes, we usually soak. If there’s not much time, though, we’ll just go ahead and put our blender blades to the test. Your almond/sunflower mix sounds pretty good. You probably have a better blender than we have; I didn’t care too much for the mixture without it being strained first. We take the pulp, put it in the refrigerator overnight in an open container, so the moisture evaporates out somewhat, and then we put it in the oven (very low temperature) for a few hours, and it makes a nice crunchy addition (like croutons, bacon bits) to salads, sweet potatoes, etc.

[Tax-chick]

Sort of like a granola cereal I’ve made, although I didn’t soak or blend first. Maybe that would make it stick together, which was always a problem.

[mlizzy]

Fresh ground peanut butter is so good. Does your family like it as much as Smucker’s?

[Ransomed]

Online rpg’s might not be so bad, much better than pac-man or whatever. In my opinion.

Freegards

[Ransomed]

“HEY!! Don’t bash 80s pop!!”

It is of the debbil. Whenever a kajagoogoo song is enjoyed by someone the Enemy smiles.

Freegards

[Tax-chick]

They all like it better. It just takes a special trip to get it, so I often don’t. If I were cooking more with whole grains, I’d be at the store to get the ground peanuts anyway ...

I knew a family who had bought a grinder that handled peanuts on eBay or at a surplus sale. We could really use it!

[BluesDuke]

[Tax-chick]

Pac-Man seems to be preinstalled on operating systems now. My 8-year-old has been talking about it. NAAAAAAAARGH I wish we could move to Missouri and live in the 1940s. My cousins would let us use the house (which my parents sold them) as long as we camped out during deer, dove, turkey, and duck season!

[little jeremiah]

Placemark.

[little jeremiah]

Oh, this was decades ago. I might try it again, though. Sounds good with a bit of almond flavoring, and using the bits after is useful too. I hate to throw anything away. Strained bits would be good toasted into home made granola, which I’ve been thinking of making again.

Years ago I used to have a *very* natural cookbook called “Ten Talents” by a Seventh Day Adventist. They had a lot of granola recipes and used flour in them, I think it helps make the granola stick together in chunks better.

When my kids were small, I’d make banana and powdered milk smoothies (often too poor for fresh milk) and add some vanilla and a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter. They loved ‘em!

[mlizzy]

Sounds very yummy. The granola I make doesn't stick together so much. It's just crumbs, but useful as nutrients, and they are crunchy on salads, etc. It's probably missing the flour.

We have this great raw cookbook. Lots of smoothies in it. There's one with cocoa powder, frozen banana slices, a little almond milk (although we usually just use water; almond milk too expensive for constant use), agave for sweetener, and vanilla extract. It tastes like a milkshake. Just delicious.

Do you know if "Ten Talents" is still available? Sounds interesting.