Harry Potter books controversy

[mcmlxix]

Hello Brothers and Sisters in Christ! Happy Our Lady of the Rosary day!

I am having a serious conundrum about the Harry Potter books.

I have always been an anti-book burning sort and believe that people should read everything. From topics you may or may not be interested in since knowledge is a very good thing especially in dispelling ignorance and of course, understanding differing points of view, etc.

My newly turned 8-year old daughter (daily communicant, faithful Catholic girl who attends a wonderful Catholic school) just finished the first Harry Potter book and totally loved it. I reminded her many times that sorcery is not of God and she needs to skip over the spells and incantations. Fr. Chad Ripperger, FSSP, - a great priest , is firmly against Harry Potter books as are many other priests. Even former satanist, Zachary King, who is now an fire Catholic, is completely against these books.

Based on the opinion of many good priests, I should not allow my daughter to read these books. My husband doesn’t feel the same way. He thinks it’s okay. His very good friend is a middle school teacher and faithful Catholic and believes if a child is reading the great books some pop-culture is okay. I don’t want to be a crazy mom who won’t allow my daughter to wear jeans and cut her hair but at the same time, I’m uneasy.

Are you okay with Harry Potter books? What do you think? I know the obvious answer is if I’m uncomfortable, I shouldn’t allow them. But my husband, is okay with it and I don’t know how far I should take this.

Thoughts?

 

[redbetta]

I never read the Harry Potter books nor am I a parent, but, whenever I see these popular media controversies and someone brings up that an ex-Satanist condemns this or that book, I think that you should take it with a grain of salt. I often wonder if these ex-Satanists condemning Harry Potter have the same complex as people who were once overweight and have since become health Puritans and exaggerate the amount of damage one cookie can do to you or missing a workout once.

Just my two cents. I, for one, am against the idea of restricting popular books to children unless it is clear that the author had an anti-religious agenda in writing the books, like The Golden Compass books. I have seen people get turned off from Catholicism and lapse because of Catholics who insist that we must read only the classics and that anything made in the last few decades or is popular now is morally corrosive.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Hello Brothers and Sisters in Christ! Happy Our Lady of the Rosary day!

I am having a serious conundrum about the Harry Potter books.

I have always been an anti-book burning sort and believe that people should read everything. From topics you may or may not be interested in since knowledge is a very good thing especially in dispelling ignorance and of course, understanding differing points of view, etc.

My newly turned 8-year old daughter (daily communicant, faithful Catholic girl who attends a wonderful Catholic school) just finished the first Harry Potter book and totally loved it. I reminded her many times that sorcery is not of God and she needs to skip over the spells and incantations. Fr. Chad Ripperger, FSSP, - a great priest , is firmly against Harry Potter books as are many other priests. Even former satanist, Zachary King, who is now an fire Catholic, is completely against these books.

Based on the opinion of many good priests, I should not allow my daughter to read these books. My husband doesn’t feel the same way. He thinks it’s okay. His very good friend is a middle school teacher and faithful Catholic and believes if a child is reading the great books some pop-culture is okay. I don’t want to be a crazy mom who won’t allow my daughter to wear jeans and cut her hair but at the same time, I’m uneasy.

Are you okay with Harry Potter books? What do you think? I know the obvious answer is if I’m uncomfortable, I shouldn’t allow them. But my husband, is okay with it and I don’t know how far I should take this.

Thoughts?

What do you find objectionable about them? Is it the fantasy genre that you are worried about? I doubt anyone on this site will think them dangerous. The two things that stand out with your post is that your husband and you disagree about it. My personal objection with them is not occult driven but rather it’s just bad writing. But people will defend them with great zeal. The later books are way too dark for a younger child. But the first 3ish are actually a pretty good story and not any worse than most stuff out there.

We are a traditional catholic homeschooling family. My oldest is 11. She has no interest in a boy wizard… So we have by had this dilemma yet.
I’ve read them all and seen the movies. It’s a classic example of a series that started off well but commercialism ended up driving the story.

She is no Tolkien, or Lewis, but she isn’t all bad.

Have you thought of starting with Lewis or Tolkien and THEN moving to potter if the child enjoys that type of story.

Also, I “spot check”. Books my kids read by either reading them too or by skimming, or just reading a chapter for story time. If you are concerned I would do that as well.

Hopefully your husband and you can reach an agreement. I can’t imagine having this be an issue. If my wife had an objection to what the kids wanted to read we would just find something else.

 

[LittleFlower378]

I will be facing the same problem as you. Apparently the six grade teacher in my daughters Catholic school (who is a sister) loves Potter. I do not like it and with so much entertainment available there has to be much better material to read. I dont like fantasy reading in general, but Raymond Arroyo’s Adventures of Will Wilder may be better.

According to Father Ripperger some of the spells in Potter are real spells either in the books or movies or both, I dont remember. I would not want my child repeating or watching any spells what so ever.

 

[Widlast]

Not to nitpick, but there is no actual representation of “sorcery” in the Potter series.

As long as you make it plain to your children that “magic” as represented in the stories does not exist, there should be no problem.

From what I’ve seen, the people that get upset about the Potter books are the same kind that get heartburn over Halloween.

 

[styrgwillidar]

OP,

please do a search for Harry Potter threads, there are a lot of them and they beat the subject to death. I’d recommend you review a few as this thread will probably just repeat the same points.

 

[pensmama87]

Just do a forum search on Harry Potter and you’ll get more opinions than you could even dream of on this topic.

Every October it gets dredged up along with panic over Halloween. In a couple weeks the Santa threads will start as well as holier than thou mumbling about those who dare to enjoy a Christmas song before December 24th.

:stretcher:

 

[Maximilan_Kolbe]

Just do a forum search on Harry Potter and you’ll get more opinions than you could even dream of on this topic.

Every October it gets dredged up along with panic over Halloween. In a couple weeks the Santa threads will start as well as holier than thou mumbling about those who dare to enjoy a Christmas song before December 24th.

:stretcher:

I can’t wait for the “lying” to your kids about Santa discussions.

 

[pianistclare]

Just do a forum search on Harry Potter and you’ll get more opinions than you could even dream of on this topic.

Every October it gets dredged up along with panic over Halloween. In a couple weeks the Santa threads will start as well as holier than thou mumbling about those who dare to enjoy a Christmas song before December 24th.

:stretcher:

:clapping:

 

[Lou2U]

The “spells” in Harry Potter are just bits of Latin stuck together. They certainly aren’t real, and they won’t do any harm to your daughter if she reads them. JK Rowling is also a Christian, and there is clear imagery of this, especially in the last book. The themes are all good for children to read about: friendship, loyalty, bravery, love etc. If you are concerned, then maybe you could read them with your daughter, and talk to her about what she likes and what she doesn’t. I think that as long as she understands magic isn’t real, she’ll be okay with them.

Lou

 

[angell1]

Hello Brothers and Sisters in Christ! Happy Our Lady of the Rosary day!

I am having a serious conundrum about the Harry Potter books.

I have always been an anti-book burning sort and believe that people should read everything. From topics you may or may not be interested in since knowledge is a very good thing especially in dispelling ignorance and of course, understanding differing points of view, etc.

My newly turned 8-year old daughter (daily communicant, faithful Catholic girl who attends a wonderful Catholic school) just finished the first Harry Potter book and totally loved it. I reminded her many times that sorcery is not of God and she needs to skip over the spells and incantations. Fr. Chad Ripperger, FSSP, - a great priest , is firmly against Harry Potter books as are many other priests. Even former satanist, Zachary King, who is now an fire Catholic, is completely against these books.

Based on the opinion of many good priests, I should not allow my daughter to read these books. My husband doesn’t feel the same way. He thinks it’s okay. His very good friend is a middle school teacher and faithful Catholic and believes if a child is reading the great books some pop-culture is okay. I don’t want to be a crazy mom who won’t allow my daughter to wear jeans and cut her hair but at the same time, I’m uneasy.

Are you okay with Harry Potter books? What do you think? I know the obvious answer is if I’m uncomfortable, I shouldn’t allow them. But my husband, is okay with it and I don’t know how far I should take this.

Thoughts?

I know many good priests, as far as I know, none of them have ever condemned harry potter.

I read them as a child, I didn’t have too many friends at school, so I would play make believe games by myself where I would receive a letter from hogwartsand pretend to get whisked away somewhere else where there was a possibility of me being more accepted.

I even had my class schedule all planned out and everything. my mom’s kitchen pots disappeared for a while since I thought I would be a good potions master. too bad, rocks and twigs don’t have any magical abilities… and of couse I found a stick outside and made it my own wand.

did I think any of it was real? of course not. but it was a fun way to pass the time. to try and use your imagination and think of things that you knew weren’t really possible.

not everyone is going to like them, which is fine. if you really are worried, then read them along with your ddaughter and if anything questionable does come up, you can have a discussion with her about it. but a couple of made up spells is not going ot send people to the occult. no one panicks over children pretending to be Cinderella’s fairy godmother and trying to turn a pumpkin in to a carriage, that’s also magic, by the way. I don’t even think this would be such an issue had Rowling not used the words witch and wizard to refer to the students. she could have the same story but replaced it with elf and dwarf and I doubt it would be such an uproar. just my thoughts anyways

 

[jmcrae]

The message of the books is, discover what you’re good at and get properly trained in it; be loyal to your friends, acknowledge and celebrate their different giftedness too, and always do what you know is the right thing to do, even when it’s difficult and even when the people you trust the most don’t understand you.

There is also a lot of humour around the English boarding school system (the teachers are witches? LOL!) and the English way of life.

 

[Regina7]

The priest at the school my kids used to attend saw Harry Potter being read by many of the kids, and he got pretty mad. He wrote a letter in the weekly bulletin telling parents that their kids shouldn’t be reading such garbage. I don’t recall Father saying anything about spells or witchcraft- I don’t recall that he gave any particular reason. I wish I could find that letter. At the time, my oldest was in 1st grade, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.

My kids (oldest now a teen) have not read Potter. Mostly, there are so many better books out there, so why waste time on something that is potentially troublesome and not all that well-written?

My son gets absolutely obsessed about topics and, for months, completely gets into the topic. Right now, it’s cars. I could see him becoming interested in the occult because, really, it’s quite fascinating. I read about the occult (demons, exorcisms, etcetera) but, unlike my kids, I have enough faith formation to not be affected.

 

[Gilly_flower]

The Harry Potter books are works of great imagination where love always triumphs over evil…
The “spells” are not ‘real’ spells for the simple reason there is no such thing…

 

[styrgwillidar]

The message of the books is, discover what you’re good at and get properly trained in it; be loyal to your friends, acknowledge and celebrate their different giftedness too, and always do what you know is the right thing to do, even when it’s difficult and even when the people you trust the most don’t understand you.

There is also a lot of humour around the English boarding school system (the teachers are witches? LOL!) and the English way of life.

Rowlings said the point of her books was death. The fact that what is important is not this life but the next.

It can be summed up by- 'What profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul?
and- For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

Hence it centers on a villain who is so afraid of death and loves life in this world so much he is willing to eternally damage his soul by – literally attaching it to things of this world. (Each thing being symbols of things folks become overly attached to, one’s future living in this world, one’s enemies, human knowledge, material living, love of nature, family/family honor, romantic love…). Contrasted with a protagonist willing to give up his life for others.
The most important bit in the book is showing the eternal consequences of the two’s choices.

 

[jmcrae]

Rowlings said the point of her books was death. The fact that what is important is not this life but the next.

It can be summed up by- 'What profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul?
and- For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

Hence it centers on a villain who is so afraid of death and loves life in this world so much he is willing to eternally damage his soul by – literally attaching it to things of this world. (Each thing being symbols of things folks become overly attached to, one’s future living in this world, one’s enemies, human knowledge, material living, love of nature, family/family honor, romantic love…). Contrasted with a protagonist willing to give up his life for others.
The most important bit in the book is showing the eternal consequences of the two’s choices.

Yes, thanks for that!

 

[styrgwillidar]

Yes, thanks for that!

Jmcrae, there’ve been so many threads on this I can’t remember if that’s something originally brought up by another poster. I’d like to give them credit.

I think you’ve been on these threads as well and those points might have come from you.

 

[jmcrae]

Jmcrae, there’ve been so many threads on this I can’t remember if that’s something originally brought up by another poster. I’d like to give them credit.

I think you’ve been on these threads as well and those points might have come from you.

I remember knowing that at one time - I’m glad you reminded me!

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Rowlings said the point of her books was death. The fact that what is important is not this life but the next.

It can be summed up by- 'What profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul?
and- For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

Hence it centers on a villain who is so afraid of death and loves life in this world so much he is willing to eternally damage his soul by – literally attaching it to things of this world. (Each thing being symbols of things folks become overly attached to, one’s future living in this world, one’s enemies, human knowledge, material living, love of nature, family/family honor, romantic love…). Contrasted with a protagonist willing to give up his life for others.
The most important bit in the book is showing the eternal consequences of the two’s choices.

I’ve been reading them since I was eleven or twelve. I’ve always been struck by how Christian their themes and messages are. I think a lot of people just see magic and write it off, rather than looking at the themes the magic is used to convey.

 

[Memaw]

I will be facing the same problem as you. Apparently the six grade teacher in my daughters Catholic school (who is a sister) loves Potter. I do not like it and with so much entertainment available there has to be much better material to read. I dont like fantasy reading in general, but Raymond Arroyo’s Adventures of Will Wilder may be better.

According to Father Ripperger some of the spells in Potter are real spells either in the books or movies or both, I dont remember. I would not want my child repeating or watching any spells what so ever.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine why any parent would want that garbage to go into their child’s mind. Somewhere I read, “We are what we read.” that makes a lot of sense to me. God Bless, Memaw