PTSD

It's a theme! It's a theme! (but not in a theme park)

In a rather strange interlinkage of visual and visual media, I was watching Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (Remember "Every sperm is sacred..."?) while reading up on the news this morning when I ran across a BBC article that mentioned the new Pope's opposition to the Harry Potter novels.

In two letters, which you can find through www.lifesite.net , Cardinal Ratzinger (as he was then) wrote his views to Gabriele Kuby, an author whose book's theme was, and I quote, "...the Potter books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy". (quote from the article, summarising Kuby's book)

The Pope agrees with Kuby, writing in one of the letters,

"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".

Hmm... I didn't know HP had so much power: to "deeply distort" a religion itself. After all, it's just a book. Shouldn't the powers that be be able to counteract this "subtle seduction"? (btw, isn't that a rather sexually-charged term to use to describe the effect of a book on children?)

So, add Muggles, Magic, Potions, Wizards, etc to the list of forbidden words.

PS: Apparently the former Pope had approved of Harry Potter. Does that mean that people could, in his time, read and quote HP without being sanctioned by the church but now can't? But, it's nearing the end of the series! How would you feel if you'd read this far (especially with the prophecy being revealed in the previous book) but couldn't read any further since HP is now on the "no reading this" list?

posted by Priya @ 9:17 AM