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"Pope Benedict and Harry Potter": An Article by Michael O'Brien

We recently received a request for an article on the Harry Potter series. The following is an article that was posted on Michael O'Brien's blog, studiObrien, I felt it was worth reading. Enjoy!

Pope Benedict and Harry Potter
Written by Michael D. O'Brien

Many of you will recall the controversy that arose in the world’s media a few years ago over the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels for young readers. Numerous articles appeared in the press praising the books as a breakthrough to a more literate form of culture for young people. They exalted its dramatic qualities, imaginative story-telling, humor, and promotion of “values.” Little serious reflection was given to the fact that the foundational element of the series is witchcraft and sorcery, which is glamorized and offered to the reader as normal, even a saving path. The central character, Harry, is a sorcerer in training. This is not the place to restate the arguments, pro and con; I have done this in previous articles, which are posted on this website. However, I would like to emphasize again that few if any cultural works in the history of mankind have spread so far and so quickly as the Potter series. Indeed there are now hundreds of millions of readers.

There were of course some dissenting opinions about the books, writers such as myself who examined them in the context of the ongoing paganization of children’s culture—a phenomenon that already has proved to have negative consequences. Generally, critics of Potter were dismissed as “hysterical alarmists” or “fundamentalists.” The situation was made more difficult when in February, 2003 the world media erupted with headlines announcing that the Vatican and the Pope were in favor of the books: “Pope Approves Potter” declared the Toronto Star. “Harry Potter Is Ok With The Pontiff” declared the Chicago Sun Times. Throughout North America, England, Australia, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and points beyond, the press and e-media proclaimed, “Vatican okays Harry Potter” (News 24, South Africa), “Vatican gives blessing to Harry Potter” (Scotsman), “Pope Sticks Up for Potter Books” (the BBC); “Vatican: Harry Potter’s OK with Us” (CNN Asia), and so forth.

This was a classic case of media disinformation. In fact, neither the Vatican nor John Paul II had in any way approved the series. The “story” had its source in a remark made by Monsignor Peter Fleetwood during a press conference for the release of a Vatican document on the New Age movement. Responding to a reporter’s question about the Harry Potter series, Fleetwood replied, “If I have understood well the intentions of Harry Potter’s author, they help children to see the difference between good and evil.” In short, it was the superficial personal opinion of a man who may or may not have read the books. That the media turned this into a major world-class story (and at the same time largely ignored the reason for the conference, the release of the Vatican’s teachings on the New Age movement) is so blatant a violation of journalistic standards that one cannot help but wonder over it.

The media failed to give equal coverage to a more significant statement on the Potter series when, two years earlier, Rome’s official exorcist, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, warned parents against the books in an interview with the Italian ANSA news agency. Fr. Amorth, who is also the president of the International Association of Exorcists, said bluntly, “Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil.” He maintained that many of the ideas expressed in the books were from the realm of darkness, that they contain innumerable positive references to magic, “the satanic art”, and attempt to make a false distinction between black and white magic, when in fact the distinction “does not exist, because magic is always a recourse to the devil.” He also criticized the disordered morality presented in Rowling’s works, which he believes strongly reinforce moral relativism.

In the ensuing years the controversy raged on, most notably in articles attacking critics of Potter. It has been disconcerting to see that many such articles have been published in orthodox Catholic journals. At root was a failure to understand the power of cultural material over human consciousness, and thus its effects on human actions. There was, as well, a kind of academic over-reliance on individual reason, perhaps because intelligent people of faith generally consider themselves capable of absorbing a good deal of flawed material without being harmed by it. This was to forget that the young are in a state of formation, are the most vulnerable to deformation of their understandings of reality, especially the nature of good and evil.

The controversy declined during the past year, yet it now promises to revive as the sixth volume of the Potter series—Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince—is about to be released. Amazon Books apparently has registered more than a million pre-orders for the book, and sales in retail outlets promise to be much higher in number. Another wave of the cultural tsunami is approaching. It is also, we should note, a spiritual wave.

It will be very interesting to see if the media will give as much coverage to the position of Pope Benedict XVI on the subject as it gave to a minor official in the Vatican. Prior to his election to the Chair of Peter, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had outlined his concerns about the Potter books to a German sociologist, Gabriele Kuby, who had written a book on the problems in the series and its negative effects on children. Her book, Harry Potter—gut oder böse? (Harry Potter—good or evil?) strongly critiques the series. In his March 7, 2003, letter to her, written a month after the press had falsely proclaimed that the Church approved of Harry Potter, the cardinal, who was Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith at the time, encouraged her in her critique.

In an interview that appeared in the German language edition of Zenit News she expressed concern that many people, including even devout Catholics, have overlooked the dangers she found in the Potter series:

“I have no desire to see and depict devils where there are none,” she said, “but when I see with my own eyes, when my intelligence and heart inform me, that there is a devil painted on a wall even though most everyone else sees on this same wall only flowery wallpaper design, then I feel obliged to give witness to the truth, whether convenient or unwelcome. There is such a thing as public deception—we Germans know about that.”

Elsewhere she has commented on the pro-Potter reaction of otherwise orthodox Catholics who vehemently defend the series. She believes that on the psychological level the orthodox are not immune to the pressures of the world. They feel that they defend the truth and pay a high price for it. But when the “Potter-Tsunami” (as she calls it) hits the young generation, whom they don't want to lose, they make every intellectual effort to see the “good” in the phenomenon. Then, when they are presented with serious arguments against Potter, they cannot accept that they may have unwittingly encouraged an evil, and thus react irrationally.

It goes without saying that no one is really immune from subjectivity. We are all sinners. We all must struggle through trial and error to reach a proper integration of faith and reason. As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his book on the Church in our times, Called to Communion, “. . . we are all in need of forgiveness, which is the heart of all true reform. . . . The Church is not a communion of those ‘who have no need of a physician’ (Mark 2:17) but a communion of converted sinners who live by the grace of forgiveness and transmit it themselves. . . . I believe that the core of the spiritual crisis of our time has its basis in the obscuration of the grace of forgiveness.”

The fullness of life in Christ must never be reduced to a set of doctrines to which we give an intellectual assent, and no more than that. The mind, along with the body and the emotions, must be integrated with spiritual gifts—which includes discernment about cultural influences and their underlying motives, philosophy, and effects on the inner life of the human person, and hence his actions in the world. Without this integration, it will be difficult for us to see the actual dimensions of the problems in cultural phenomena such as the Potter series. To declare them harmless (and even good) simply because they are not a matter of doctrine, but only of culture, is to make a false and dangerous split between faith and culture.

Kuby's maintains that the Potter books prevent the young from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, and in this regard she quotes from Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter:

"Thank you very much for the instructive book. 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." (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, March 7, 2003)

In a second letter to her, May 27, 2003, he wrote that he "gladly" gives her his permission to publicize his judgement about Harry Potter.

In a handwritten personal Christmas card he sent to her in December of 2003 he said, "Thank you very much for your courageous engagement against occultism and magic.”

This discernment on the part of the man who is now Benedict XVI reveals the Holy Father's depth perception. It is consistent with many of the statements he has been making since his election to the Chair of Peter, and throughout the past 30 years. His strong exhortation to the cardinals as they were about to enter the papal conclave focused on the need to resist the “dictatorship of moral relativism.” His is 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 prodigious intellect, wisdom, and rich cultural knowledge are integrated with profound spiritual gifts. Let us remember that the struggle for the soul of this generation is not a “mere” abstract discussion, but is intensely underway (sometimes subtly, but not always so) in every field of culture. Indeed it is in the field of culture that we have been losing many battles (and perhaps many souls) for a long time now. It has become the major front of the spiritual war waged over mankind—the war that will last until the end of time.

This is why we need especially to invoke all the graces Heaven wishes to pour out for us. Among the foremost of these is the role of the Mother of God in our lives. She has a particularly powerful role in the formation and protection of our children, one that is crucial to the outcome of decisive battles in the Great War. Articles, discussions, and debates are needed, but most of all we need to pray and fast, invoking Christ’s aid through her intercession. She is the Mother of mankind and the Mother of the Church. Benedict XVI is the father of the universal Church and we would do well to listen to him.

Another excellent article is:
Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children's Culture

In Christ,
Joe