Harry Potter is Dangerous for Both You and Your Children

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.

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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.

There are two key points in the sermon with which I agree:

1) It is profoundly deceptive to suggest that magic is acceptable, especially in the HP case where it is available to some by nature and not to most. That truly divides humanity into two dissimilar parts, making behavior acceptable for some that is utterly unattainable by others.

Note that this also applies in series like the Wheel of Time, where access to either the One Power (the good side) or the True Power (the evil side) is limited to those genetically empowered. The series somewhat amends the damage by making the limits of power the very argument of the books and showing how abuse of power is always destructive, first to the violator and then to anyone coming into contact with them in widening circles of damage (that is not the only theological problem with WoT, but the others don’t apply in this discussion).

2) Harry’s continual disobedience is a real and disturbing element for me. It is not a matter of being creative: he literally disobeys and then is generally rewarded by Dumbledore. This in some sense leads to Dumbledore’s death but the text never really connects the former with the latter. Only the spiritually-informed will draw the connection and will have to admit they are stretching the material to even suggest there might be linkage or causality in the case. The problem runs right through the books, and the difficulty is that one truly can take disobedient action when circumstances leave no other option. The implication is that the decision is left by the deity to the human, who must weigh obedience against positive action on behalf of another individual (such as in Chamber of Secrets, where the problem is most acute). Harry just gets in the habit of doing whatever he thinks needs to be done, breaks in whenever he thinks information needs to be ferreted out and overrules authority on his own say-so. This all implies that none of the adults involved has or would have any ability to intervene as Harry does. That reduces them to ciphers, unless they are actually evil, in which case they are made to look foolish when Dumbledore overrules them in Harry’s favor.

Note: Harry’s Triwizarding entry is the major exception to this observation. It is known that he did not enter himself and actually tried to get out of participating. The entry was made by one of the evil ones and everyone goes along with it.

I do not agree that the magic per se in HP is evil. Even when Barty Crouch Jr, acting as false-MadEye, is teaching the students about the three unforgiveable curses, he makes explicit why they are forbidden and it is clear that they partake of a power that is meant to be beyond human use. Only someone completely depraved (such as Voldemort) would even contemplate it and, of course, anyone who succumbs to his temptations also falls. So there is a right use in the HP universe and a natural order of obedience and right behavior that happens to correspond with what we interpret as right behavior.

I wholeheartedly agree and more. I was especially grieved when all the prayers after 911 turned to news about record breaking lines to see Harry Potter.

I skimmed the book years ago and was concerned that so many Biblical phrases were used and turned upside down. I think it was the second or third book.

I think you’re absolutely right about it, Obama might be a threat but Satan is after our children.

Same thing with Pokemon, I remember one of their posters had a big focus on a child and said something about THE POWER IS YOU

Total antithesis of Jesus Christ. It amazes me how many Christians seem to be blind to it. It’s a toxic poison pill to the soul.

I wholeheartedly agree and more. I was especially grieved when all the prayers after 911 turned to news about record breaking lines to see Harry Potter.

I skimmed the book years ago and was concerned that so many Biblical phrases were used and turned upside down. I think it was the second or third book.

I think you’re absolutely right about it, Obama might be a threat but Satan is after our children.

Same thing with Pokemon, I remember one of their posters had a big focus on a child and said something about THE POWER IS YOU

Total antithesis of Jesus Christ. It amazes me how many Christians seem to be blind to it. It’s a toxic poison pill to the soul.

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