Granger on O'Brien on Benedict

In “Pope Opposes Harry Potter?” Hardly., John Granger tries to undo some of the mischief recently done by Michael O'Brien, "the prolix apocalypticist," as the reviewer in the English Catholic weekly The Tablet called him, and his allies in LifeSiteNews. They have used two general letters by the then-Cardinal Ratzinger to a German anti-Potterian to claim that the pope has condemned the Harry Potter books. The claim got O'Brien on television.

Among other things, Granger writes of the Vatican official to whom Cardinal Ratzinger (or an assistant) referred the writer, who found her book unsatisfactory, and more to the point, does not think the letters mean what she, and O'Brien, claim.

In the interview, Fr. Fleetwood makes it clear he doubts the letters were written by the Cardinal:

I was sent a letter from a lady in Germany who claimed to have written to the then-Cardinal Ratzinger, saying that she thought Harry Potter was a bad thing. And the letter back, which I suspect was written by an assistant of the then-Cardinal Ratzinger in his office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, suggested that there was a subtle seduction in the books. What that subtle seduction was, was not specified, which makes me think it was a generic answer. And she had written a book on these subjects and so the Cardinal's signature was at the bottom of the letter, suggesting she should send me the book. She sent me the book, and I found it a very unsatisfactory book.

So unsatisfactory was the book that he felt obliged to send her a four page letter detailing the errors and misunderstandings in it. Ms. Kuby, Mr. O’Brien, and LifeSiteNews.com make no mention of this exchange and Ms. Kuby’s failure to heed or even respond to a letter sent from an official of the Pontifical Council of Culture who has read the books.

As Fr. Fleetwood points out, the wording in the German is generic and “subtle seductions” does not point to Harry Potter the way the LifeSiteNews.com translation presents it. The German language version in fact reads more like a description of poisons that don’t allow plants to grow normally in the soil. It congratulates the author for being watchful for such subtle seductions in even children’s books but does not say that Harry Potter is one of these.

As the Catholic News Service report makes clear, “Cardinal Ratzinger did not say he had read any of the Harry Potter books.” His letter did, however, direct the author to a Pontifical Office that dealt with these matters and to a person that had read the books – whose guidance and instruction Ms. Kuby has ignored and LifeSiteNews.com neglects to mention.

If you're interested in the subject, you'll want to read the whole article. Granger, the author of Looking for God in Harry Potter, which I thought quite helpful, includes several links to other useful articles, including the transcript of Fr. Fleetwood's interview about the books.

One's heart sinks at antics like O'Brien's. This kind of thing only holds up the pope, and the Catholic Church, and Christianity in general, to ridicule. We have to say enough things that invite ridicule from the worldly — that Darwinism has its problems, for example — that we do not need to say things that invite the worldly to ridicule our Faith and do so with good reason.

If you want to read The Tablet review, The magical alchemy of love, the web address suggests that it won't be up long, so read it now . The reviewer writes of the book's moral vision:

What, then, is their moral framework? Whatever the case in the real world, in Rowling’s fictional universe magic is in essence morally neutral, a talent requiring development and training (its inner workings remain mysterious, which is as it should be). As with any other talent, the use made of it defines its moral content. Dark magic, issuing in death and cruelty, is explicitly seen as a bad thing and a perversion.

At its most prosaic, magic is simply an alternative to the developed technology of the machine; at higher (or deeper) levels, it is something fundamentally mysterious: its highest, deepest, most mysterious and powerful form, is love. Harry is protected against Voldemort because his mother, out of love, died saving him. Dumbledore appears weak precisely because he allows for potential good even in the apparently wicked.

This is, surely, a profoundly moral and responsible vision, one that has become clearer as the series has progressed. Sacrificial love is at the heart of Rowling’s moral universe just as it is of Tolkien’s.

This seems to me true. The latest book, in fact, includes a chapter in which Dumbledore explains things to Harry, that reminds me very much of chapter II of The Lord of the Rings, in which Gandalf explains things to Frodo. Rowling — my eldest has recently told me that her name is pronounced to rhyme with "Bowling" — is no Tolkien, and I think this latest book makes that clearer. There is nothing in the book as complex, or subtle, or profound as Tolkien's treatment of Providence, if I can refer you to an essay of my own.

But she is on the side of the angels.