Harry Potter: yes or no?

The wizard boy has come back on his flying broom, casting a global spell on international and Maltese readers, all yearning for the sixth book in the series: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

He has many fans, among whom priests, sisters, heads of schools and teachers, who spontaneously ask children to do projects about Potter, organise outings to watch the films and incite the children to read the books.

Bluntly enough, I must say that neither I, nor the other members of the Diocesan Commission for the Occult and Exorcism can be counted as fans of Harry Potter.

Apart from the negative experiences of parents who bring their children to us with problems after reading the books, we are convinced with many others, that the books are instilling in our children an occultist mentality.

Often you hear children - while playing - saying to one another: "I cast a spell on you." Surely enough, they say it as a joke, very often without understanding what this implies, but the occultist language is becoming part of them.

Harry Potter is not the only literature and the only means that is negatively influencing our children.

One must keep in mind that neither can Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - now Pope Benedict XVI - be counted among the fans of Harry Potter. The Holy Father has written two very critical letters on the best-selling series, contending that the tales are "sacrilegious and dangerous" for children.

In a private letter written in March 2003 to a Catholic author in Germany, the then Cardinal Ratzinger said that the tales "deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly".

The letters were written to Gabriele Kuby, who was worried about the beguiling child wizards and dragons, who on her part was judging them as "preventing young readers from developing a sense of good and evil and could corrupt their relationship with God". Cardinal Ratzinger then answered: "It is good that you are enlightening people about Harry Potter."

In the second letter, the Cardinal gave Kuby permission to publicise her "judgement".

Surely we cannot take these statements as official pronouncements of the Church, but we cannot refrain from taking them into consideration.

Copies of the letters were obtained by Lifesitenews.com, a Canadian religious news service, and published on the Internet.

Harry Potter: Yes or No?

Many will surely say Yes.

On my part, I prefer to say No.