Vatican: Harry Potter's OK with us

Reuters via CNN ^

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -- Harry Potter fans, relax. The Vatican says the kid is all right.

The question of whether J.K. Rowling's books and the films on the boy wizard have a positive influence came up at a news conference Monday where the Vatican presented a document on "New Age" spirituality, which contain elements of the occult.

[Dajjal]

Harry Potter : Pampered jock, patsy, fraud.
By Chris Suellentrop

[tonycavanagh]

Cheers for posting, this Harry Potter threads are always good for a laugh. I was recalled to the colours last year, and so dont get to read FR as much as I used to, and since I get Iraq all day and night its nice to go on one of my fave sites and have a bit of a laugh.

Cheers Tony

[T Minus Four]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel (the Buffy spin-off where the evil guy is the hero)
Charmed (the TV series)
The Craft (movie about witches)
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
AntiChrist Superstar (along with much other rock music, although that seems to be waning)
the Goth movement

OK, see, that's what I mean about maybe not noticing. I have never heard of any of these except of course the Goth thing, and Sabrina, which I have watched and it seems about as dangerous as Bewitched.

[Elenya]

Why should you attack concerned parents in this way?... Before making sweeping and derogatory generalizations, perhaps you could try to do some reading of your own.

I read every book I think my kids might be interested in. And when I'm satisfied it's suitable, they're allowed to read it. I DON'T NEED TO READ ANY ARTICLE ABOUT IT. I'm an adult, and I make my own decisions thank you. And it turns out I think the HP books are perfectly suitable, except for the last one which I think is too dark to be suitable for kids under 12.

[Dasaji]

exposed to the occult and vampirism as a child through playing Dungeons & Dragons...

---

And last week we learned of two sons dismembering their mother 'cause that's how they saw Tony Soprano do it to Ralph on The Sopranos.

And my grandmother gave most of her assets away to Oral Roberts in the '70's because 'she thought' that's what he called her to do. She ended up living on state care in a deplorable nursing home for years.

No occult influence here. Just a mob guy and an evangelist.

"Influence" is one thing...going out and *acting* on it is another. It is the teaching of right and wrong and children being able to discern between the two.

BTW, since my kids read Harry Potter, the constantly nag me to take them to the Voodoo store. Sheesh. /sarcasm

[Dasaji]

Except for perhaps Satanism which disturbs me so thoroughl

---

God is much more scarier than Satan.

[Karsus]

John List, who murdered his entire family, was a very religious man and murdered them because he felt it was the only way to stop them from straying from God and the Bible.

Does that mean the Bible is wrong? No, it means some people are just plain CRAZY.

Just because a few people, who happen to play RPGs, go insane and kill people doesn't prove that RPGs are bad. Since millions of people in the US play RPGs why aren't there more murders linked to suicides?

Also, you appear to not know the following about Ferrell.
From http://www.unusualkentucky.com/kyvampire.html

"Ferrell's mother, Sondra Gibson, was recently charged with trying to coerce a 14-year-old boy into having sex with her and helping her become part of the vampire clan. "

Ferrell came from a very messed up family and a broken home which makes me wonder why so many are so quick to blame RPGs when so much else was wrong is his life.


http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/list/1.html
"'Breeze Knoll' was a nineteen room, three-story Victorian mansion, and the most expensive house in an upper middle class neighborhood in Westfield, New Jersey. It even had a massive ballroom. John List, 46, lived there with his wife, Helen, 45; his daughter, Patricia, 16; and his two sons, John Jr., 15, and Frederick, 13. His 85 year-old mother, Alma, lived in an apartment in the attic. List was a religious man with an extreme need to keep things under control. He kept everything in its place, barely ever smiled, and even mowed his lawn in a suit and tie. In October of 1971, he applied for a firearms registration, for “home protection.” However, he had something altogether different in mind.

Two months before, Pat, his daughter, had been picked up by the police for walking the streets after midnight and smoking. To John List, she was trouble and he was certain she was going straight to hell. That his wife, who no longer went to church, protected her from his anger was a sure indication that things were getting out of hand. In November of 1971 he made the decision to change everything, but it was not until December 7th that anyone realized what he had done.

For the past month a neighbor next to the mansion on 431 Hillside Avenue had noticed all the lights on in the house and thought it was odd. She knew the List family had been away on vacation, but now the lights were apparently burning out. The house had an abandoned appearance, although she spotted a strange car in the driveway on several occasions. She finally decided to notify the police.
Patricia List at 16 years (victim)

Around the same time, Patty’s drama coach, Ed Illiano, had his own concerns, so he decided to check them out. Patty was supposed to be at a rehearsal for an upcoming play and had not even sent him a note to say when she was returning from North Carolina. At one point, not long before she left, she had even told him that her father was going to kill her. He went to the house several times, and finally decided to get the police involved, but they were already on their way. (One account says that he went in, stumbled upon a gruesome scene, and kept it to himself for two days.)

Finding a window unlatched, the officers entered the house. There was no heat so the temperature inside was almost as cold as outside. Clearly no one was there, although they heard music playing loudly over an intercom system. It sounded like something from church. The place seemed barren of furniture, as if the family had moved.

The officers made their way through the empty dining room and into the pantry, where they noticed dark stains on the walls. In the kitchen, the checkerboard floor was stained with dark streaks. So was the hallway beyond, and they noticed that a terrible smell was getting stronger from down that direction. They knew that something terrible had happened. It appeared as if someone had tried unsuccessfully to clean up blood. They followed the stains down the hallway toward the ballroom. In one area near the fireplace, there appeared to be mounds of clothing stacked up, and the odor in there was heavy. Whentheir eyes adjusted to the dark, they looked at four corpses placed side by side on Boy Scout sleeping bags. There were rags over their faces. Trails of blood up to where they lay indicated that they had been dragged there from other rooms. The drama coach immediately identified them as Helen List and her three children.
The sleeping bags
(police evidence)

The three children lay side by side, and Helen was placed at a T angle beyond their heads. Clearly they had been there for some time.

The officers checked the rest of the house while the eerie organ music continued to play, and soon found John List's mother, Alma, murdered in the attic. She had been closed into a storage hall off the kitchen, and a dishtowel was placed on her face. Her body had been oddly positioned on her back, knees spread and her calves under her, as if she had fallen to her knees and then gone over backwards. They lifted the towel and saw an expression of horror on her face. She had been shot above the left eye.
Helen List, mid 1960's (victim)

More police arrived and lights were brought in to reveal the killer’s MO. Helen had been shot in the left side of the head in the kitchen and dragged by the feet down the hall to the ballroom. Her arms were heavily streaked with blood. The killer had left her with her nightgown ridden up, exposing her thighs. Her stomach was badly distended.

Patty lay on her left side. She was wearing a coat, as if she had just come in. She too had been shot in the head and then dragged to where she lay. Fred was on his stomach, also wearing a jacket. There was a pool of blood under his head. Brother and sister appeared to be merely asleep.
John Jr. and Fred List (victims)

John Jr. was another matter. His winter jacket was unzipped, showing that he had been shot repeatedly, in the chest and face, an attack more savage than the others had suffered.

The house was searched to determine the killing pattern. Walls and floors were streaked with blood and efforts had been made to clean up. Blood-soaked towels and newspapers, now hardened, were found in paper bags in the ballroom and kitchen. It looked as if the killer had expected to take them out with the rest of the trash. Bullet holes in several walls indicated that many shots were fired.

It was Westfield’s first murder in eight years, and it was a slaughter. "

[Karsus]

What is funny is the ignore all the other things that were wrong in that kids life. Like the fact that his mom was charged with trying to rape a 14 year old to get him to join the vampire cult. His mom did that. But in the quest to blame RPGs such little details do not matter.

Some people are just plain crazy. Why do people forget that?

[HamiltonJay]

Both good and bad are done by "wizards"... They are portrayed like any other people, good and evil. HP is a very clear cut Good V Evil books, no greys, at least not in any I have read.

I am glad to see the Vatican made a stand... won't stop the fundamentalists from screaming dark arts... but at least it shows some official counter to the madness.

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

Cheers for posting, this Harry Potter threads are always good for a laugh.

The funny thing is...I never read the thread that I started. I got so caught up in a side issue (thinking mistakenly that someone was attacking me) that I got distracted. I think I'll read the thread now and laugh. :-)

[Maximilian]

I DON'T NEED TO READ ANY ARTICLE ABOUT IT.

In that case you must consider participating in FR to be a waste of time since you have no need to become more informed.

And it turns out I think the HP books are perfectly suitable, except for the last one which I think is too dark to be suitable for kids under 12.

Turns out we pretty much agree, since I have been pointing out that the biggest problem with Harry Potter so far is that each book in the series becomes darker and darker. If book 4 was inappropriate for kids under 12, then what will book 7 be like?

Wouldn't it seem that there is a big problem here if these books are "not suitable for kids under 12," but they are being marketed precisely to the audience for which they are unsuitable?

[Maximilian]

And last week we learned of two sons dismembering their mother 'cause that's how they saw Tony Soprano do it to Ralph on The Sopranos.

If you are willing to compare Harry Potter to "The Sopranos," then you are making a very strong argument against Harry Potter. I think that most parents would agree with me that we would NEVER allow our children to watch The Sopranos. It would so obviously be a detrimental influence, almost to the point of culpable parental negligence.

[Maximilian]

Apparently you missed the entire point of the story. You demanded evidence that role-playing games led to occult participation. This story was a good demonstration of exactly that.

The murder was significant only because that is what brought the story to the attention of the national media. Murders are committed every day for a variety of motives. But in this particular case, the boy's experience with role-playing games led to his participation in genuine occult activities which eventually led to murder.

[Antoninus]

(BTW- just me, no "minister" indocrinitatting me over my shoulder)

Excellent. So it's your very own wacked out criticism of Catholicism that you're offering here, based on a ridiculously shallow and incomplete knowledge of scripture, history and Church tradition. So you are only citing your own authority. Tell me, if I subscribe to your theology, can I be the first OHelixist?

Do you think your argument makes my statement inaccurate? "If I'm deceived because I misunderstand the Word of God, then I'm deceived, but what God really said still goes...

Hey, I agree with you. What God really says goes. But statistics alone make it highly improbably that you, in your limited study of scripture 2000 years after the fact and totally divorced from Church history or tradition, have somehow managed to place into heresy multiple billions of Catholics, including Sts. Jerome, Justin Martyr, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Aquinas, and other such intellectual giants. It's possible, but not very likely. Just like it's possible that if I dig in my back yard, I might find the Holy Grail. I reckon you are deceived.

I have studied ancient Greek, and I do read some Greek texts....

Hey, it's a good start. Better than most knee-jerk anti-Catholics.

As previously concluded, I am quite ignorant.

Limited knowledge of Greek aside, that's still true based on the remarkably uninformed statements you made about obelisks, pagan temples, et al.

Most people here are intelligent enough to recognize that your arguments are not arguments...They are attempted ridicule.

You're right, I'm not arguing with you. I chose not to argue with those who attack the Catholic Church without demonstrating even the faintest knowledge of where Catholic doctrine came from or how it developed, or indeed, what it is. Those who ignorantly equate Catholicism with paganism aren't worth the effort.

Those who attempt to interpret scripture on an individual level absent the history, tradition, and basic understanding of the doctrines of the Church almost invariably spin off into abject heresy. Had you come onto this thread (and the previous one about the Blessed Charlemagne) and acted reasonably instead of immediately attacking the practices of the Catholic Church, discussion would have been possible. As it is, I suspect your bigotry goes too deep for rational discussion to do much good.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

The Vatican never purchased it.

Sorry. Upon further review you are correct. It was not my intention to lie.

It was one of the very same Egyptian obelisks that stood in Egypt in Heliopolis in ancient times when the myster religion came to pagan Rome. It was hauled there at great expense. Pope Sixtus V ordered it to be moved a little in 1586 in order to centre it in front of St. Peters. Elohim ordered these to be destroyed in the OT. Instead it sits in front of St. Peters'. A silly reminder of pagan persecution. It should be destroyed.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

I got ahold of some bad info.

[Dasaji]

I wasn't comparing Harry Potter to the Sopranos. I made that reference in regard to the article posted about the Vampire kid who committed murder but was an avid D&D player. You know, that D&D "caused" him to do it?

I was simply comparing and asking, 'well, did that Sopranos episode *really* influence those boys to kill their mother? (No, it influenced how they would dispose of her). Did Oral Roberts *Command* my grandmother send him all her money? No, but she was influenced enough to send in more than she wisely should have. Is that Oral Roberts' fault? Of course not.

[OHelix]

"...based on a ridiculously shallow and incomplete knowledge of scripture, history and Church tradition. ..."

Well.. My views are based on an admitedly incomplete knowledge of scripture, history, and Church tradition. Given a general lack of omniscience on my part, it's all I've got to work with. I suppose I could just find someone who claimed omniscience, and be their follower, or defer my own reason to Intellectual Giants, but that would be disobedient to Word of God.

Those who attempt to interpret scripture on an individual level absent the history, tradition, and basic understanding of the doctrines of the Church almost invariably spin off into abject heresy.

Please be more specific in regards to what you mean by "absent the history, tradition, and basic understand of the doctrines of the Church".

[Domestic Church]

" I do not believe Harry Potter in any way, shape or form could turn a well balanced child into a witch"

With 50% of all marriages breaking up and 50% of all kids now in what once would have been considered an imbalanced social environment, the idea of a well balance child is out moded. Our social fabric has become so fluid with the speed of change and the variety factor that even the most "well balance child" is now exposed to things blatant and subliminal that would have made folks a century ago rise up in anger. There is precious little insulation for childhood these days and the general public has been so desensitized to not even recognize danger on the surface nevermind the psychological level.

[wideawake]

Fair enough. I retract my accusation.