https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/harry-potter-banned-school-library-nashville-tennessee-exorcist-a9087676.html

"A Roman Catholic school in Tennessee has banished JK Rowling's universally popular series of Harry Potter novels from its library shelves after its pastor took exception to their portrayal of magic, warning the spells and curses the author describes are real and “risk conjuring evil spirits” when read.

The Reverend Dan Reehill explained his decision in an email to the parents of students at St Edward Catholic School in Nashville, declaring that he had consulted with exorcists in the US and at the Vatican before outlawing the seven-volume tale of the boy wizard’s career at Hogwarts and his battle against Lord Voldermort and the forces of darkness.

“These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text,” the Reverend Reehill wrote, apparently in all seriousness."

in b 4 ~ ¿ ~ wut wood RfM do without OPie to re-tweet the click-bait news to exmos ? ~

OP is just showing us the insanity of religion.

If the Catholics won’t uphold pre-Enlightenment values, who will?

So Harry Potter is in some way real?
If only!!
Love those books. Read them to my daughter the whole time we were mormons. I feel like I did one thing right.

I can vouch for the fact that these spells don’t work. If they did, a lot of mormons would find themselves cursed already.

Harry Potter is as real as the goofy stuff they do in Catholicism.

If I had to pick between an invisibility cloak and a wafer turning into a God, my odds are with HP.

I think maybe they (people who take their religion's claims seriously) instinctively know books like HP are competition against their religion's "magic" world.

Keeping kids way from HP is supposed to somehow prevent kids from connecting the dots about magic claims make by religion. The trick is enforcing the idea that Satan is real and competing with the church instead of reality.

This is one school and one nutty administrator, not official doctrine. Around here, I have never heard a Catholic complaint about Harry Potter. It isn't an issue with anyone I know although I don't doubt there are a few Catholics who have issues with it.
I don't know any mainstream Christians who rail against inter racial marriage either-at least not younger ones.Some of my parent's generation were raised that way. Times were different unfortunately. Again, there are some, but it isn't necessarily a result of religion. It is more about history and bigotry. Do we have to always find the nut jobs and write posts implying that their views are typical Christian behavior? There are nuts and racists everywhere and there are extreme religious people, but here are more moderate ones.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2019 01:38AM by bona dea.

From the article: "The Reverend Dan Reehill explained his decision"

It definitely sounds like it's just one guy acting on his own initiative.

It's time to get back to pure religion.

You know...things like a small stone that can translate ancient records into weird English. Things like special handshake protocols that can be used to detect evil spirits pretending to be good spirits (D&C 129). Things like incantations that can seal souls together so that they don't get separated in the mist and fog of the spirit world. Things like incantations and arm positions that can be used to create force fields powerful enough to eject evil spirits from your area. Things like thin, soft protective garments that work better than Kevlar, but are no heavier than long underwear.

Who needs Harry F'n Potter?

It’s a great way to get kids to read Harry Potter.

I live in TN and I can concur that there are plenty of crazies here. A few years back in a letter to the editor, a woman wrote that atheists should not be allowed to live in our community. Sigh... I see many wearing t-shirts or jackets, which have to be expensive, touting the Creation Museum in Kentucky. The admission is $30 per person. That is the place with the supposed recreation of the Ark. There is a truck that runs around town with a banner stating, "Darwin is a believer now." A friend wanted to go to a snake handling service just to see it. I declined. I can go on and on about life here at times.

The culture is changing for the better. Major European companies have built massive facilities nearby and they continue to expand. There has been an influx of regular folks who are not extremists in their beliefs or who do not attend church at all. It feels good to have more diversity. I played in a jazz group with a Muslim saxophonist for example. He has since moved to China to teach music.

I feel embarrassed with the news articles about Tennessee that make national news. We were in Austria earlier this year. When folks asked where we were from and said Tennessee, they all immediately commented on the religiosity of the area. It is not viewed too favorably. TN is an OK place to live however. There is good and bad everywhere.

Update: The Ark and Creation Museum are two different locations. I assumed they were the same.

"The new pricing structure will go into effect March 1, it was announced Wednesday. The goal for the pricing is “to help more families, churches, schools and other organizations to bring as many children to the Ark and museum as possible,” a news release states.

Adult tickets to the Ark will rise from $40 to $48 and senior (aged 60 and older) tickets will go from $31 to $38. Children under 4 years old will still get free admission, while prices for children to 5 to 12 years old will decrease from $28 to $15. Prices for teenagers will be $25.

Combo tickets, which include passes to both the Ark and nearby Creation Museum..."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2019 10:32AM by Eric K.

I suspect Kentucky, Alabama and Texas have TN beat for bad press lately!

I noticed the same happening in part of Birmingham, AL. There seem to be more and more companies in the South owned by foreign countries. I worked for a big global one myself there. The extremist types are going to have to weigh the impact of diversity against having jobs I suppose. It's complicated.

Are those prices still good if Hurricane Dorian moves inland and stalls over TN?

They still have school libraries with paper books? Kids never heard of Amazon Kindle?

I'd see a good chance of my daughter leaving mormonism.

....because the spells are real?!

These people have no right calling themselves educators.

Just because you tried one and it didn’t work. Muggles.

What are you talking about?!! “Crucio” didn’t work on my former RS president, and I tried enough times.

You could banish or vanish mean and nasty people. You could clean a sinkful of dirty dishes in no time. There could be a spell for de-grumpifying people, so that anybody who was being mean or unpleasant to you could be "poofed" with a spell and turned into a nice person.

I wouldn't have any objection to spells that made the world a nicer place.

What gets me most about this is how late to the game these people are. The first Harry Potter book came out, what, 20 years ago? Whackos have been complaining for decades about these "evil" books. What took this dude so long?

A dear friend of mine, also a former Relief Society president, introduced me to the Harry Potter series. She was also an elementary school teacher, and she thought the HP series would revolutionize children's enthusiasm for reading. She thought the books were very clever, loved the way they taught about loyalty and friendship, and had nothing but good things to say about them. I hadn't planned to read them, but her enthusiasm got me hooked. And I'm glad it did. I loved those stories!

Poor reporting. RCs don't generally have pastors which calls into question the whole reliability of this article.

From the US Catholic Conference of Bishops:

http://www.usccb.org/about/public-affairs/glossary/index.cfm

"pastor.A priest in charge of a Catholic parish or congregation. He is responsible for administering the sacraments, instructing the congregation in the doctrine of the church, and providing other services to the people of the parish. Pastor is not ordinarily used as a title before the name of a Catholic priest: He is Father John Smith or Msgr. John Smith or the Rev. John Smith, depending on your publication's style manual."

Also see

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/pastors-administrators-parochial-vicars.html

It's still not a word that is generally associated with Catholicism. The normal reference would be to a Catholic priest, not a Catholic pastor. My guess is that this was an error on the part of the reporter who is more familiar with Protestantism.

There is a thread on FB. Catholics are shreading this decision

The Catholics prefer their own incantations and spells.

I agree with Bona Dea that this is not normal Catholic behavior.

Thankfully it is not normal behavior for MOST Catholics who somehow blow off what is implied directly from their religion.

I believe it IS normal behavior for the Church itself, based on the fact they still have official exorcism procedures and the Pope prattles on about Satan. It's not a big stretch to see why people see the potential of demons and spells everywhere when immersed in that kind of religious teaching.

The particular "pastor" did consult some official exorcist when making his decision.

Not all Catholics are "normal" enough to ignore what is implied by the Church. No one should be surprised when some people take it seriously. Thankfully they are few, but still, it potentially impacts children and the larger society. It fosters (with a wink and nod) superstition and regressive thinking.

IMO, those of us who see the potential effects of this kind of nonsense are right to be diligent in making a big public fuss when stories like this happen. The rank and file Catholic has no problem looking the other way while supporting the religion that plants this kind of thinking in the most sincere believers among us.

I think you’ve gotten to the heart of the issue there. And I do seem to remember when these books first came out that there were christians and mormons commenting on them being anti-religious/satanic because of what it was about, spells and so on.

Religion or its followers do seem to have an opinion on just about everything. Similar stuff applied to yoga when I started doing it 15 years ago. It’s ridiculous to me now, but if you listen to enough of this stuff as a believer then you just live in fear of just about anything and everything, as well as being annoying, opinionated and a killjoy.

Well said, dagny.

Exorcism is extremely rare. It almost never happens and the church has no policy regarding such fantasy works as Harry Potter so Catholics, in this case, are not ignoring church teaching. This is the opinion of one man and an exorcist. Harry Potter is taught in some Catholic schools according to some FB posters. HP is similar to the Chronicles of Narnia and TLOTR which were written by Catholics. By the way,people have opinions whether they are religious or not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2019 10:30AM by bona dea.

>>Exorcism is extremely rare.

Right. It is a part of the extreme fringe element of the church. It's not correct to say that it typifies Catholic belief any more than a belief in alien abductions typifies Americans.

As for Popes, their attitude towards the practice of exorcism generally ranges from "can't stand" to "barely tolerate."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2019 05:28PM by summer.

Ya know Dagny, the thing that gets me is that there is not a huge outcry from the PARENTS. The guy is obviously not fit for the position he holds. Someone should wingardium leviosa his ass right out of there.

Good point.
I don't understand the apathy and apologetics when kids are involved, be it crazy doctrine, abusive priests, or a rogue school.

How do we know there aren't protests? Catholics on FB are trashing the priest.

Dagny wrote in part:

"I don't understand the apathy and apologetics when kids are involved, be it crazy doctrine, abusive priests, or a rogue school."

I think I do. Parents will look up to the priest as representing the church authority even if he isn't. And, from what I've read on this board (for over a decade now), many Mormon parents behave the same way. We really do want to believe and trust authority, even when that authority is wrong and/or misplaced.

I agree with this Mormons, who presume church authorities know what they are doing when they appoint bishops and stake presidents and mission presidents--or institute or seminary teachers--do the same thing. They assume that those in power are there because of divine favor and hence that what they say must be taken seriously.

Such credulity knows bounds; some people defer 10% of the time, others 90%. But I know full well that we were taught to accept our leaders' guidance as divinely inspired; and whether it is entrusting one's children to a child molester or marrying, or refraining from marrying, as instructed by a leader, or tolerating abuse in mission field, people do it all the time. The notion that "well, this is one maverick priest" doesn't mean much in authoritarian organizations.

The problem is the teaching of deference to the powerful. Where that is the rule, people get hurt.

think of the 'other side' of this;

how many saw the story Rowling being a charity benefactor;

think of all those readers & their love for reading;

think of all those employed in the production of books & movies.

STFU all self-righteous types!!

Rowling really did get a generation interested in books. She did a great service to the cause of literacy.

Agree

The Catholic junior school close to where I live in Perth banned not only Harry Potter but also the Goosebumps series. Children were not allowed to order any of these books when the Scholastic Book Club had them on sale.

I also think that this is a great way to get those students interested in reading those books. In the end, the series is about good triumphing over evil.

TN isn't all bad, they're going to have beer at the UT/BYU game this weekend.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/foodnews/neyland-stadium-prepares-for-beer-sales-at-uts-game-against-byu/ss-AAGTHtY

I don’t buy it. This isn’t the first time dogmatic groups warn of the evils of Harry Potter. I think it’s because they fear the competition because of the devoted following the series has earned through the years.

Li'l sister turned me into a Newt!


(I got better . . .)

Photos or you are still a newt.

For no particular reason that I can think of, the memory surfaced of us elders in Mexico teasing kids in the street as we were tracting by acting all solemn, making the sign of the cross and then gravely intoning, "I can play dominoes better than you can play dominoes."


Hmmm... maybe you had to be there?

How utterly ridiculous. So much for their socalled Christianity.

Back when I was teaching MS, I had to do a whole nother lesson plan for one kid because his parents didnt want him to read Fahrenheit 451. It's about burning books. So Bibles would be burned.

I was so pissed to do that extra work for one kid wirh a different book than the rest of the class.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2019 04:08AM by lisadee.

So. I went to WikiHow then went out in the yard and cut a wand. Sternly told that feather "wingardium leviosa" dozens of times. Damn feather. Still will not foat :(

You can buy a real HP.wand on Amazon.I got one for my niece. As for them spell,.It isn't real Latin. Lol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2019 06:42PM by bona dea.

Reverend Dan Reehill grew up in a small bedroom under the stairs.

For the sake of clarity and consistency, did this priest ban the Wizard of Earthsea series or The Lord of the Rings series for the same reasons? Did he forbid his students from watching reruns of "Bewitched," and "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch." An inquiring mind wants to know.

Only Harry Potter has 'real spells'. LOTR was written by a Catholic and doesn't have real spells. See the difference? Me neither Lol. He hasn't actually read them and neither has the exorcist. People on FB, including Catholics, with a few nutty exceptions think he is crazy