Harry Potter and the Caster-Out Of Demons
September 01, 2006

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The Catholic Church really isn’t good with the mainstream media, are they? First they condemned The Da Vinci Code, providing Dan Brown’s potboiler – which no-one halfway to sane could conceivably have thought was real – with a massive free marketing campaign. Opus Dei’s outrage in particular gave credence to his silly story about self-flagellating monks. Now, the Pope’s personal exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, has condemned Harry Potter as evil and satanic. (I’d have started with Voldemort, but apparently Harry’s just as bad.) But it’s Father Amorth who’s got me worried.

I guess it’s difficult to draw the line between fact and fiction when you devote your professional life to taking a book full of supernatural stories completely literally. So literally, in fact, that you swear off sex forever – in other words, it’s a pretty big call. After all, one book you read describes Jesus walking on water, and another describes Harry Potter flying on a broomstick. One’s provides the path to eternal life, the other is children’s fiction. Someone should probably save Father Amorth a bit of embarrassment and explain this to him.

Do readers really believe that Harry Potter is real? That the magic described could happen? Let’s just say that I’ve never heard of anyone breaking their nose running into a wall at Kings Cross Station.

Father Amorth takes particular issue with the distinction in the book between black and white magic – presumably on the basis that it isn’t possible for magic to be good. It’s all Satan. But unfortunately for Father Amorth, the bit that it’s most sensible to take issue with is whether any magic is possible. It’s not terribly sensible to get lost in the moral details of something that doesn’t exist.

The most worrying part of this story is not that Harry Potter may contain “the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil”, but that Pope Benedict employs a professional caster-out of demons. I’m not particularly reassured that the spiritual leader of hundreds of millions of people believes in demons enough to employ a professional Ghostbuster. Especially one without Bill Murray’s sense of irony.

What’s more, if demons exist, Father Amorth is doing a rubbish job, frankly. A simple process of vetting for demons before appointing candidates to the priesthood could have saved the church – not to mention the victims – an enormous amount of grief.

Father Amorth also said that Hitler and Stalin had been possessed by the devil – which might have been a more useful insight from someone inside the Vatican ahead of Hitler’s rise to power, as opposed to their initial support for fascism over communism.

While Father Amorth isn’t particularly convincing on the subject of demons or Satanism in Harry Potter or elsewhere, he has certainly provided ample evidence of the existence of fruitcakes within the Catholic Church.

Dominic Knight



http://radar.smh.com.au/archives/2006/09/harry_potter_an_1.html

I found it interesting reading that one of the "miracles" performed by Jesus has since been demonstrated to have been possible at the time - just so long as you keep the crowd at a certain distance so they don't know what is happening. Seems to me like he was just a regular guy with a bit of the Seigfried and Roy about him. No, I'm not saying he wore pastels and was gay...

The whole walking on water was possible because the climate was colder then - as evidenced by tree rings. It is said to be possible that the Sea of Galilee could have partially frozen in winter. Most people from those times didn't travel much past the next village - let alone for days at a time. So when Jesus leads people to Galilee they hadn't been there before and may well have never seen a frozen lake.

So, if you keep people far enough away and walk up to the ice you can walk along it with your feet still splashing in surface water. They can't see the ice and think it's a miracle. (Scenes of Life of Brian should be replaying in your head right now).

I've seen other well balanced programs discussing religion and history that demonstrate another fire based bible story. The scene was repeated by a child that picked up a stone (flint) and used it to light natural gas that seeps up through the ground. Sure - a miracle if you haven't travelled out of your village and seen the world before.

No wonder all these cloistered fools all live in the one place and make a big hoo-hah and hide behind bullet-proof glass whenever they travel to visit the "masses". The Haj is happening as I write. At leave Islam encourages people to go on a large journey - even if only once.

Father Amorth says that Hitler was possessed by the devil. Well, I for one am glad we gave the good Father the job of telling us the freaking obvious. Would never have known otherwise. I wonder what his take on The Wizard of Oz would be? Something like: "Tinman, the Lion and the Scarecrow are demonic corruptions of the holy trinity" blah blah blah. E-blah??

You go buddy... all this energy wasted on Harry Potter.  I tell ya nobody can ever say us Americans have issues.

Dara, good article.

an interesting article and good response Snooze.

Marty I don't think Americans have issues.  I'm engaged to one and he seems fairly normal - at times...only kidding but he's from San Diego where the climate is a little warmer than New York.  Weather can do strange things to one's mind haha