Without a doubt. Catholics who rail against Harry Potter as if JK Rowling was Satan himself do great harm to our credibility when addressing the real problems facing us. What credibility do I have telling somebody about the sinfulness of living together, for instance, when they can respond “aren’t you the guy that told us reading Harry Potter was a grievous sin also”?
Utter nonsense. People will view how we live and what choices we make…HP being only one tiny choice among thousands. Today Catholics are not visibly seen to be any different than anyone else. Even on Fridays Catholics used to be seen as set apart, not so today. Catholics abort, contracept, live together, fornicate, divorce, support same sex marriage, etc., just like the non-Catholic world around us.
This HP discussion is just one small piece of a very sick total body of Catholics who simply refuse to be different than the world. Catholics now say: “we are called to be of the world and to enjoy it all, rather than saying: we are called to be part of the world and not of the world.”
We are called to be more cautious, to be much more careful with souls, to lean towards the conservative side for the sake of souls.
You reject Father, and so do millions of other people, at your own peril…it is a fools choice imo because the things he knows goes way beyond what we know.
Either Father is 100% wrong, or all Catholics should give his statements serious thought. The reason for that is simple, the Father is in the trenches with this stuff, he has no reason at all (nothing to gain personally) to make statements about HP or the Vampire movies, etc. He makes those statement from concern.
Now, you said the fact that millions support HP is proof that Father is flat wrong. You must by now realize how silly that is. Millions support abortion and all the other things I listed, and those things are condemned by the clergy as well…the quantity of people thinking something is morally acceptable has NOTHING to do with whether or not it is actually morally acceptable. Nothing at all…the majority are very often wrong because they do not have the inside facts and knowledge, yet they act as if they do.