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In a move to protect children, a Roman Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee has banned the Harry Potter books from the school library. The reason?
The books contain evil spirits and true curses that, when spoken aloud, could summon those spirits and do harm to both children reading the books and the innocents around them.
While the children attending the school aren’t banned from reading Harry Potter outright, it does seem like an extreme move considering just how many children have grown up reading this now-iconic series and have not summoned evil spirits while doing so.
Reverend Dan Reehil, who is a pastor at St. Edward Catholic School, wrote an email that went out to all parents on Wednesday that detailed his decision.
Reehil says that he consulted exorcists both from the United States, and those working in Rome, to determine the danger that this series and others could present to impressionable children.
The exorcists clearly shared his concerns, because in the email he states that the series will no longer be available for checkout. The school has recently moved and expanded its library, and as that happened, the administration has been determining just what to offer. Apparently, The Boy Who Lived did not make the cut.
“The curses and spells” that are inside the novels are “actual curses and spells” the email reads. “…when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits”. Reehil uses this logic to defend his position.
We have to assume Reehil expected parents to embrace his views, but it seems that is not the case. An anonymous letter was shared on Monday, just days after Reehil’s announcement, expressing concerns about this decision.
In the letter, parents question the priest’s “fringe” views on witchcraft and possession, and are concerned about his ability to “critically assess and discern fact from fiction”.
Parents also expressed their desire to have been part of the decision-making process on which books their children could check out.
The superintend of schools for the Catholic Dioceses of Nashville, Rebecca Hammel, shared support for Reehil against the parental and media backlash.
She stated that each pastor has the authority to make such decisions and that he only made this choice out of an “abundance of caution”.
She also goes out to point out that the Harry Potter book series has “received attention” because of how it has presented “magic and witchcraft”.
Over 400 million copies of the Harry Potter series have been sold worldwide since the first book’s release in 1997, and the series has been translated into 68 different languages.
