The new Harry Potter book hits stores this Friday, and at thousands of book parties around the world, fans will celebrate their bespectacled hero's return. At the Vatican, however, the mood may not be so bright. First it's that damn Da Vinci Code that threatens the tenets of the Church — and now, horrors, another installment of J.K. Rowling's schoolboy saga further undermines the teachings of Jesus Christ pointy-hatted men playing God.
This time, the Pope himself is gravely concerned, if these pre-papal musings from two years ago are any guide.
Ratzinger wrote that Harry Potter books represent a potential for a "subtle deception" that "is barely noticeable and for that reason penetrates deeply", a deception that could be a "subversion of Christianity in the inward being."
It's certainly true that Catholic authorities know a thing or two about deep penetration — of cherub-cheeked choirboys, mostly — but my point is this. Are we to understand that His Holiness has actually read the Harry Potter series, perhaps after slinking into a bookstore to check out the latest printed evil, from Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse to, I dunno, Jugs magazine? I'd love to have been a fly on the wall cash register during that transaction.
If only he'd read them, he'd realise they're just not very good.
Posted by: Phil | Thursday, July 14, 2005 at 02:10 PM