The Only Evil Fiction Catholic's should avoid

[Transformer]

Harry Potter has gotten more attention because of its relative popularity and high level of media attention. Simple as that.

I haven’t heard the pope damning Harry Potter. Thats new to me. Does anyone have a link to this?!

Because he didn’t, of course. Instead, a page in a cardinal’s office wrote a polite thank-you letter to a woman who wrote an anti-Harry Potter book. Not at all the same thing, huh?

I don’t want to drag this into another Harry Potter debate (It will happen, of course, but no need to make it happen any sooner than it has to). This is just such an important point of face that it must be cleared up as soon as possible whenever it rears its ugly head.

For a class at a conservative Catholic university I just read Camus’ The Stranger and two plays by Sartre. I thought they were great. What now, Catholic critics?

 

[SilverLight]

It’s a book to me nothing more

 

[Marchmain1987]

For a class at a conservative Catholic university I just read Camus’ The Stranger and two plays by Sartre. I thought they were great. What now, Catholic critics?

So what?

You are comparing apples to oranges.

1. I had a class in college on the topic of Modern French Culture. We spent weeks on the homoerotic (and had to read practically everything Jean Genet ever wrote). It wasn’t pleasant. However, I made it through to my favorite topic of Francois Truffaut.
2. Parents who do not allow their young adult/tween to read material they feel is offensive (or their child is not ready for) is responsible parenting.
3. This has nothing to do with academic freedom.

 

[SurlyMermaid]

Scooby Do?

Those meddlin’ kids just go around proving monsters they encounter are just hoaxes, who would have gotten away with it if not for …

Unless someone is saying that a dog that sorta kinda talks is supernatural, lol.

And, I hear, they’re all thinly-veiled pot smokers!!!

Marchmain, you are cool! My mother was a King fan and named me after one of his famous characters!!!

 

[Biblelove13]

Harry Potter is not evil. J.K. Rowling admitted it’s Christian herself. I’m so sick of that.

You mentioned one series that IS evil. The Golden Compass. Thankfully the movie was a bomb. But, the books are still popular I’d say. I only say they’re evil because the whole plot of the books are about killing God. Books are not evil just because they have magic in them or vampires or anything like that.

I don’t see how Twilight is evil?

The Wizard of Oz? Seriously?

I haven’t read the Hunger Games.

Although I haven’t read Twilight, I’ve seen 3 of the movies, and I can definitely see how some parts of them are evil. For me the thing about Twilight I like is the idea of having something forever, but the problem is Bella’s ‘forever something’ isn’t God. Jesus says in Mark 12:25 that you aren’t going to be married in the afterlife, so to me, Bella needs to focus on God and not on Edward. The whole thing about blood is another thing entirely. Supposedly, they only drink animal blood, but Acts 15:29 doesn’t say to abstain from human blood, it says blood, period. There’s also the whole sleeping with a corpse thing.

 

[SilverLight]

Although I haven’t read Twilight, I’ve seen 3 of the movies, and I can definitely see how some parts of them are evil. For me the thing about Twilight I like is the idea of having something forever, but the problem is Bella’s ‘forever something’ isn’t God. Jesus says in Mark 12:25 that you aren’t going to be married in the afterlife, so to me, Bella needs to focus on God and not on Edward. The whole thing about blood is another thing entirely. Supposedly, they only drink animal blood, but Acts 15:29 doesn’t say to abstain from human blood, it says blood, period. There’s also the whole sleeping with a corpse thing.

I do not look for religion or anything in a book its a book to me nothing more nothing less books and my religion are seperat

 

[Transformer]

Marchmain–

I’m not sure what you think I think. I was basically just throwing out a cheap-shot at certain Catholics whose literary judgment I find lacking, the sort who think Fireproof is a truly great movie while anything with fantasy magic in it should automatically be greeted with deep suspicion.

You’re right, though; I flatter myself way too much if I think I’m terribly edgy because I’ve read a couple of trendy, popular French existentialists.

1. I had a class in college on the topic of Modern French Culture. We spent weeks on the homoerotic (and had to read practically everything Jean Genet ever wrote). It wasn’t pleasant. However, I made it through to my favorite topic of Francois Truffaut.

That sounds fascinating (and unpleasant). I actually once acted in a scene from The Balcony, just incidentally.

1. Parents who do not allow their young adult/tween to read material they feel is offensive (or their child is not ready for) is responsible parenting.

And no one’s denying it. But surely it is problematic and dangerous when a parent’s prudential judgment about what is appropriate is manifestly unreasonable?

1. This has nothing to do with academic freedom.

I didn’t mean to suggest it did.

 

[Marchmain1987]

I’m not sure what you think I think. I was basically just throwing out a cheap-shot at certain Catholics whose literary judgment I find lacking, the sort who think Fireproof is a truly great movie while anything with fantasy magic in it should automatically be greeted with deep suspicion.

That sounds fascinating (and unpleasant). I actually once acted in a scene from The Balcony, just incidentally.

We can certainly agree on Fireproof!
I only wish *Mystery Science Theatre 3000 *was still on the air to rip into it.

I think I read your post the wrong way.

However, my point is that not everyone is capable of appreciating some works (by their merit) without it damaging their faith (or facilitate a disordered impulse).

1. Does Querelle de Brest have more merit than a Janet Oke novel? Yes.

However, would I want my teenage son or daughter (who may or may-not have same-sex attraction) reading it (if they were not capable of placing it into context)? No.

Just being honest.

Just being prude.

 

[Neildown]

How about the Hunger Games? Other Fantasy Kid’s books.

Hunger Games has no allusions to dark spirituality as far as I remember.

 

[Neildown]

Harry Potter is not evil. J.K. Rowling admitted it’s Christian herself. I’m so sick of that.

I’ll agree that Harry Potter is not necessarily evil (depends mostly on who reads it for what reason and why the author wrote it, etc.), however, “Harry Potter is Christian” is one I’ve never heard. Though I haven’t read the books I’d say that’s a bit of a stretch just for the fact that its main thematic element is witchcraft/magic.

 

[styrgwillidar]

I’ll agree that Harry Potter is not necessarily evil (depends mostly on who reads it for what reason and why the author wrote it, etc.), however, “Harry Potter is Christian” is one I’ve never heard. Though I haven’t read the books I’d say that’s a bit of a stretch just for the fact that its main thematic element is witchcraft/magic.

Just search for the other numerous HP threads and you’ll see the case made repeatedly, including reference to a book? article? written on the subject by a catholic author.

As Neildown said, and I mentioned earlier, regardless of the author’s intent it really comes down to how the audience/reader perceives it. And I do agree that a parent has a responsibility to assess material based on how they believe their child will perceive and react to it. There are books I wouldn’t consider evil that I wouldn’t want my kids to read at particular ages. And those ages are different based on the individual child.

Writings/movies/art can be twisted by folks to suit their purpose or the message they would like to see vice what the artist intends. Remember the Disney movie, Wall-E about the small robot and an abandoned polluted earth? How many came away with this intended message from the creators:

"In WALL-E, we learn just what life would be like were the promise of the welfare state finally realized. Far from the schemes of Utopians, it seems downright hellish. Pixar animator and filmmaker Andrew Stanton told as much to the Christian magazine, World:
“What if everything you needed to survive—health care, food—was taken care of and you had nothing but a perpetual vacation to fill your time? What if the result of all that convenience was that all your relationships became indirect—nobody’s reaching out to each other? A lot of people have suggested that I was making a comment on obesity. But that wasn’t it, I was trying to make humanity big babies because there was no reason for them to grow up anymore.” "

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Though I haven’t read the books I’d say that’s a bit of a stretch just for the fact that its main thematic element is witchcraft/magic.

Tolkien, Lewis, and the bards who hailed King Arthur say hi.

 

[Neildown]

Tolkien, Lewis, and the bards who hailed King Arthur say hi.

I KNEW you would show up, I KNEW IT!

Tolkien and Lewis never seemed to have gotten as much flack as Rowling - which I assume is due to the fact that people didn’t generally attribute dark spirituality to their themes. It was more perceived as fairy-tale magic as opposed to a darker sort of stuff which many people obviously attribute to Harry Potter. (I couldn’t say anything about King Arthur as I’ve never read those).

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

I KNEW you would show up, I KNEW IT!

Tolkien and Lewis never seemed to have gotten as much flack as Rowling - which I assume is due to the fact that people didn’t generally attribute dark spirituality to their themes. It was more perceived as fairy-tale magic as opposed to a darker sort of stuff which many people obviously attribute to Harry Potter. (I couldn’t say anything about King Arthur as I’ve never read those).

Actually, Tolkien and Lewis did and do get that kind of flack.

A quick Internet search will reveal that some fundamentalist Protestants have a real hostility toward them for exactly the same reasons some Christians think Harry Potter is dangerous.

I wasn’t alive in the 1960s and 1970s, but from what I’ve heard and read, Tolkien was once quite popular with people who were into the occult. I wish I could remember my source for this, but I even recall sightings of graffiti that said, “Christ is dead - Frodo lives!”

Of course, none of that makes Tolkien dangerous. He’s a great author, and his fantasy is actually quite Christian. A few crazies don’t prove otherwise.

I’m a fan of Tolkien, Lewis (fiction and nonfiction), and Rowling.

 

[patrick457]

Actually, Tolkien and Lewis did and do get that kind of flack.

A quick Internet search will reveal that some fundamentalist Protestants have a real hostility toward them for exactly the same reasons some Christians think Harry Potter is dangerous.

I wasn’t alive in the 1960s and 1970s, but from what I’ve heard and read, Tolkien was once quite popular with people who were into the occult. I wish I could remember my source for this, but I even recall sightings of graffiti that said, “Christ is dead - Frodo lives!”

Of course, none of that makes Tolkien dangerous. He’s a great author, and his fantasy is actually quite Christian. A few crazies don’t prove otherwise.

I’m a fan of Tolkien, Lewis (fiction and nonfiction), and Rowling.

When Tolkien strongly criticized Åke Ohlmarks’ translation of his works into Swedish, since Ohlmarks not just invented many expression of his own, but also took great liberties with the contents both by shortening many parts of it and by inserting his own interpretations, the latter began to show hostility towards Tolkien and his fandom, publishing a book titled Tolkien and Black Magic, expounding a highly-contrived conspiracy theory connecting Tolkien with Nazi occultism in 1982. Can you say ‘sourpuss’?

Given how much of a devout Catholic Tolkien was (his mother Mabel converted to the faith when he was eight, which led her to be ostracized by her Baptist family; soon Tolkien would consider her to be a “martyr indeed…who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith”), I think he would have been sore displeased with the “Christ is dead, Frodo lives” graffiti.

 

[Marchmain1987]

Can I use being a Catholic as an excuse to skip Wagner’s Ring Cycle?

Sometimes once is enough!

 

[Liquid47]

Harry Potter isn’t evil, nor is it good, it’s objectively neutral.

Rowling did state that her books were meant to be Christian allegories. I kinda started to see that with the last few books: when you try and recreate the story of Our Lord, rather than the story of our lives in relation to the Lord, you hit a brick wall, simply because it’s not the story of Our Lord. C.S Lewis’s last book had that problem with being too close to home, and the last Harry Potter book just went bizarre with Elder Wands and Invisibility Cloaks and Resurrection Stones.

One thing that I did find interesting was that she mentioned Dumbledore was gay. In hindsight, it’s quite remarkable that he was portrayed as a chaste being. That was true Christian virtue, methinks.

 

[patrick457]

One of Tolkien’s sons actually was a priest. Not that it would make things better though IMO: I’ll bet that a good number of those who decry Tolkien’s works as evil are the same crowd who would attack the Catholic Church as Satanic.

And here’s a letter which he sent to his son Christopher in 1944:

… Your reference to the care of your guardian angel makes me fear that ‘he’ is being specially needed. I dare say it is so. … It also reminded me of a sudden vision (or perhaps apperception which at once turned itself into pictorial form in my mind) I had not long ago when spending half an hour in St Gregory’s before the Blessed Sacrament when the Quarant’ Ore was being held there. I perceived or thought of the Light of God and in it suspended one small mote (or millions of motes to only one of which was my small mind directed), glittering white because of the individual ray from the Light which both held and lit it. (Not that there were individual rays issuing from the Light, but the mere existence of the mote and its position in relation to the Light was in itself a line, and the line was Light). And the ray was the Guardian Angel of the mote: not a thing interposed between God and the creature, but God’s very attention itself, personalized. And I do not mean ‘personified’, by a mere figure of speech according to the tendencies of human language, but a real (finite) person. Thinking of it since – for the whole thing was very immediate, and not recapturable in clumsy language, certainly not the great sense of joy that accompanied it and the realization that the shining poised mote was myself (or any other human person that I might think of with love) – it has occurred to me that (I speak diffidently and have no idea whether such a notion is legitimate: it is at any rate quite separate from the vision of the Light and the poised mote) this is a finite parallel to the Infinite. As the love of the Father and Son (who are infinite and equal) is a Person, so the love and attention of the Light to the Mote is a person (that is both with us and in Heaven): finite but divine: i.e. angelic. Anyway, dearest, I received comfort, pan of which took this curious form, which I have (I fear) failed to convey: except that I have with me now a definite awareness of you poised and shining in the Light – though your face (as all our faces) is turned from it. But we might see the glimmer in the faces (and persons as apprehended in love) of others. …
On Sunday Prisca and I cycled in wind and rain to St Gregory’s. P. was battling with a cold and other disability, and it did not do her much immediate good, though she’s better now; but we had one of Fr. C’s best sermons (and longest). A wonderful commentary on the Gospel of the Sunday (healing of the woman and of Jairus’ daughter), made intensely vivid by his comparison of the three evangelists. (P. was espec. amused by his remark that St Luke being a doctor himself did not like the suggestion that the poor woman was all the worse for them, so he toned that bit down). And also by his vivid illustrations from modern miracles. The similar case of a woman similarly afflicted (owing to a vast uterine tumour) who was cured instantly at Lourdes, so that the tumour could not be found, and her belt was twice too large. And the most moving story of the little boy with tubercular peritonitis who was not healed, and was taken sadly away in the train by his parents, practically dying with 2 nurses attending him. As the train moved away it passed within sight of the Grotto. The little boy sat up. ‘I want to go and talk to the little girl’ – in the same train there was a little girl who had been healed. And he got up and walked there and played with the little girl; and then he came back, and he said ‘I’m hungry now’. And they gave him cake and two bowls of chocolate and enormous potted meat sandwiches, and he ate them! (This was in 1927). So Our Lord told them to give the little daughter of Jairus something to eat. So plain and matter of fact: for so miracles are. They are intrusions (as we say, erring) into real or ordinary life, but they do intrude into real life, and so need ordinary meals and other results. (Of course Fr. C could not resist adding: and there was also a Capuchin Friar who was mortally ill, & had eaten nothing for years, and he was cured, and he was so delighted about it that he rushed off and had two dinners, and that night he had not his old pains but an attack of plain ordinary indigestion).

 

[patrick457]

(continued)

But at the story of the little boy (which is a fully attested fact of course) with its apparent sad ending and then its sudden unhopedfor happy ending, I was deeply moved and had that peculiar emotion we all have – though not often. It is quite unlike any other sensation. And all of a sudden I realized what it was : the very thing that I have been trying to write about and explain – in that fairy-story essay that I so much wish you had read that I think I shall send it to you. For it I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary ‘truth’ on the second plane (for which see the essay) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love. Of course I do not mean that the Gospels tell what is only a fairy-story; but I do mean very strongly that they do tell a fairy-story: the greatest. Man the story-teller would have to be redeemed in a manner consonant with his nature: by a moving story. But since the author if it is the supreme Artist and the Author of Reality, this one was also made to Be, to be true on the Primary Plane. So that in the Primary Miracle (the Resurrection) and the lesser Christian miracles too though less, you have not only that sudden glimpse of the truth behind the apparent Anankê of our world, but a glimpse that is actually a ray of light through the very chinks of the universe about us. I was riding along on a bicycle one day, not so long ago, past the Radcliffe Infirmary, when I had one of those sudden clarities which sometimes come in dreams (even anaesthetic-produced ones). I remember saying aloud with absolute conviction: ‘But of course! Of course that’s how things really do work’. But I could not reproduce any argument that had led to this, though the sensation was the same as having been convinced by reason (if without reasoning). And I have since thought that one of the reasons why one can’t recapture the wonderful argument or secret when one wakes up is simply because there was not one: but there was (often maybe) a direct appreciation by the mind (sc. reason) but without the chain of argument we know in our time-serial life. However that’s as may be. To descend to lesser things: I knew I had written a story of worth in ‘The Hobbit’ when reading it (after it was old enough to be detached from me) I had suddenly in a fairly strong measure the ‘eucatastrophic’ emotion at Bilbo’s exclamation: "The Eagles! The Eagles are coming !’… And in the last chapter of The Ring that I have yet written I hope you’ll note, when you receive it (it’ll soon be on its way) that Frodo’s face goes livid and convinces Sam that he’s dead, just when Sam gives up hope.
And while we are still, as it were, on the porch of St Gregory’s on Sunday 5 Nov. I saw the most touching sight there. Leaning against the wall as we came out of church was an old tramp in rags, something like sandals tied on his feet with string, an old tin can on one wrist, and in his other hand a rough staff. He had a brown beard, and a curiously ‘clean’ face, with blue eyes, and he was gazing into the distance in some rapt thought not heeding any of the people, cert. not begging. I could not resist the impulse of offering him a small alms, and he took it with grave kindliness, and thanked me courteously, and then went back to his contemplation. Just for once I rather took Fr. C. aback by saying to him that I thought the old man looked a great deal more like St Joseph than the statue in the church – at any rate St Joseph on the way to Egypt. He seems to be (and what a happy thought in these shabby days, where poverty seems only to bring sin and misery) a holy tramp! I could have sworn it anyway, but P. says Betty told her that he had been at the early mass, and had been to communion, and his devotion was plain to see, so plain that many were edified. I do not know just why, but I find that immensely comforting and pleasing. Fr. C says he turns up about once a year. …]

 

[patrick457]

And another gem (To Michael Tolkien, 1963):

…You speak of ‘sagging faith’, however. That is quite another matter: In the last resort faith is an act of will, inspired by love. Our love may be chilled and our will eroded by the spectacle of the shortcomings, folly, and even sins of the Church and its ministers, but I do not think that one who has once had faith goes back over the line for these reasons (least of all anyone with any historical knowledge). ‘Scandal’ at most is an occasion of temptation – as indecency is to lust, which it does not make but arouses. It is convenient because it tends to turn our eyes away from ourselves and our own faults to find a scape-goat. But the act of will of faith is not a single moment of final decision: it is a permanent indefinitely repeated act > state which must go on – so we pray for ‘final perseverance’. The temptation to ‘unbelief’ (which really means rejection of Our Lord and His claims) is always there within us. Part of us longs to find an excuse for it outside us. The stronger the inner temptation the more readily and severely shall we be ‘scandalized’ by others. I think I am as sensitive as you (or any other Christian) to the ‘scandals’, both of clergy and laity. I have suffered grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, and even bad priests; but I now know enough about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church (which for me would mean leaving the allegiance of Our Lord) for any such reasons: I should leave because I did not believe, and should not believe any more, even if I had never met any one in orders who was not both wise and saintly. I should deny the Blessed Sacrament, that is: call Our Lord a fraud to His face.

If He is a fraud and the Gospels fraudulent – that is: garbled accounts of a demented megalomaniac (which is the only alternative), then of course the spectacle exhibited by the Church (in the sense of clergy) in history and today is simply evidence of a gigantic fraud. If not, however, then this spectacle is alas! only what was to be expected: it began before the first Easter, and it does not affect faith at all – except that we may and should be deeply grieved. But we should grieve on our Lord’s behalf and for Him, associating ourselves with the scandalizers not with the saints, not crying out that we cannot ‘take’ Judas Iscariot, or even the absurd & cowardly Simon Peter, or the silly women like James’ mother, trying to push her sons.

It takes a fantastic will to unbelief to suppose that Jesus never really ‘happened’, and more to suppose that he did not say the things recorded of him – so incapable of being ‘invented’ by anyone in the world at that time: such as ‘before Abraham came to be l am’ (John viii). ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (John ix); or the promulgation of the Blessed Sacrament in John v: ‘He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life’. We must therefore either believe in Him and in what he said and take the consequences; or reject him and take the consequences. I find it for myself difficult to believe that anyone who has ever been to Communion, even once, with at least right intention, can ever again reject Him without grave blame. (However, He alone knows each unique soul and its circumstances.)

The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children – from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn – open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to Communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand – after which [Our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)

I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church, the temple of the Spirit* dying but living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and rearising. But for me that Church of which the Pope is the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it is the one that has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honour, and put it (as Christ plainly intended) in the prime place. ‘Feed my sheep’ was His last charge to St Peter; and since His words are always first to be understood literally, I suppose them to refer primarily to the Bread of Life. It was against this that the W. European revolt (or Reformation) was really launched – ‘the blasphemous fable of the Mass’ – and faith/works a mere red herring. I suppose the greatest reform of our time was that carried out by St Pius X [Possibly a reference to Pius X’s recommendation of daily communion and children’s communion.]: surpassing anything, however needed, that the Council [Vatican II] will achieve. I wonder what state the Church would now be but for it.