'Finite incantatem': Church lifts anti-Potter spell

'Finite incantatem' is the spell used by Snape in Chamber of Secrets when Harry and Draco are duelling. Richard Owen reports for The Times today on the Holy See's Harry Potter u-turn, with a surprisingly positive review for the latest film in L'Osservatore Romano. Writing from Rome, Richard says, 'In 2003, two years before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, then a Cardinal and head of Vatican doctrine, said that JK Rowling’s stories of the boy wizard threatened to corrupt an understanding of Christian faith among the impressionable young.' Of additional interest to readers here, though, might be that the strongest Catholic condemnations of Potter came from the Austrian conservative priest Father Gerhard Wagner.

Father Wagner condemned the Potter novels as satanic, as well as arguing that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for sin. He was appointed an auxiliary bishop in Linz before withdrawing under pressure after his views threatened to bring the Church into ridicule.

Extraordinary things have been happening in Linz, the most liberal Catholic diocese in Europe, possibly the world.

Not content with celebrating Corpus Christi with a piece of focaccia bread serving as the host in the monstrance, it appears an apostolically-consecrated 'woman bishop' has been nicking hosts from Mass. And while the Church might have recanted its condemnation of Potter, Wagner has been going round saying more of the same.

Read all about Wagner and the eccentric goings-on at Linz over at Chris Gillibrand's CathCon.

I love Rowling's novels and can't wait to see the latest film. But sometimes, real life is just as strange, and just as entertaining.

Comments

[iain rae]

Children , carry on reading Harry Potter, and leave the frustrated old men in the Vatican to find something else to rant about.

[Edward I]

I agree with Alan.
You need to be a lawyer to read, understand and remember all the new terms, conditions, clause, rules and regulations or you'll fall foul of the "great new comments system" of The Times.
Lawyers will be the death of us all.
Has The Times taken leave of its senses?
(I trust that comment doesn't contradict the new sub clause about not offending anybody).

[Edward I]

Flip flop.

[alan]

Ruth - the Times has introduced a "great new comments system". The Times used to be my favourite online paper.

I'd like to remain faithful to you, though, till you're also overtaken (taken over?) by the great new comments system.

I hope it never happens.

Best wishes

[James]

Why are the comments of certain posters (believers? catholics?) always so measured, without even the slightest hint of hopeless generalisation? Why are they always so alive to humour, so willing not to take themselves too seriously, so slow to cast aspersions, always careful to avoid personal insults, so alive to Christian humility, compassion and forgiveness, and so resistant to self-indulgent claims of victimisation?

[Vincent McKenzie]

Ruth

You have the spiteful ways of a teenage girl. Grow up.

[Peter Bridgman]

Why do non-Catholics always assume that the Church hierarchy is a monolith that has only one opinion on everything? If, back in 2003, Benedict's opinion was that the Potter books "threatened to corrupt an understanding of Christian faith among the impressionable young," then this is probably still his opinion in 2009. As far as I know, he doesn't write the film reviews for L'Osservatore Romano.