Wait, Twilight? The vapid crap written by the Mormon lady with the misspelled name about how women should pine over men who mistreat them, who are unwilling/unable to commit to them? Isn’t that kind of a Catholic message anyway?
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. This is insane:
THE appointment of a new exorcist by Sydney’s Catholic Church precedes a warning by a senior clergyman that generation Y risks a dangerous fascination with the occult fuelled by the Twilight and Harry Potter series.
Julian Porteous, the auxiliary bishop of Sydney, warns that pursuing such ”alternative” relaxation techniques as yoga, reiki massages and tai chi may encourage experimentation with ”deep and dark spiritual ideas and traditions”.
Bishop Porteous, who is second to Cardinal George Pell in the Australian Catholic hierarchy, told The Sun-Herald the Twilight and Harry Potter books and films ”are attractive to adolescents and can be innocent enough.
”However, they can open up a fascination with this mysterious world and invite exploration of various phenomena through the use of occult practices like seances.”
(…)
Bishop Porteous – who has stood in as exorcist for the Sydney archdiocese over the past five years – warns that yoga, reiki massages and tai chi can lead to people being in the grip of ”demonic forces”.
Uh huh. And people who believe that demonic spirits can inhabit people’s bodies are somehow not dangerous?
Come clean, guys: isn’t the problem more that if kids are off reading Twilight and Harry Potter instead of coming to church, then they run the risk of noticing how similar those fantasy worlds are to the utter fantasy world that is the Catholic Church? Wizards! Demon spirits! Hotty totty vampires! A multi-tiered spiritual world we can communicate with! Transsubstantiation! Using a priest as a medium to curry favor with a deity!
Etc.
As to the weird comment about yoga leading people into the grip of “demonic forces,” I’d rather my child be in the grip of a “demonic force” than in the grip of a Catholic priest, ifyouknowwhatImean&Ithinkyoudo.
(h/t Pharyngula)
Says one purveyor of fiction about another form of fiction.
Leaders of the Catholic Church waste so much time on making non-issues into big issues. Why don’t they spend as much time on doing something about the pedophile priests that keep popping up all around the world? That is really evidence of Satan’s influence, not a couple of fictional movie characters.
Great question, David. Worry less about Harry Potter and more about Fr. Chester. That’s the real danger to children, not Twilight or Harry Potter. But you know the Church…it has to stick its nose in everyone’s business.
I think it’s unfair to slam all priests and to dismiss the entire church as a fantasy world.
But I agree that orthodox Catholicism is full of the mythological icons that you cite, and that — while most priests are not molesters — nevertheless, no priest or nun should be trusted with children until the church gets serious about abuse prevention, public accountability, and full cooperation with government prosecution. Oh, yes — and the abolition of the celibacy requirement.
Mike- celibacy is not really the problem by itself, not if someone has the gift for it. I tihnk the bigger problem is that the cleibacy requirement provides a theoretical structure for people iwth sexual issues ot think that if they join the priesthood, they won’t have sexual iassues.
It is very much like with the boyscouts. They ban gay people from the scouts. so who is doing the molesting that is still very much a problem? Allegedly straight men. The gay ban only provides a cover for men who wanna-be-straight-but-ain’t to do what they are going to do.
Ben, I generally agree, however, I think few people are suited to celibacy, and the church seems to be misguided in its guidelines for identifying such people.
That’s the problem. to be a priest, you just can’t say “I wanna.” You have to go through a whole process to determine whether you have a grenuine vocation, literally a calling from God. You must have also been given the additional gift of celibacy.
Either the church’s process is bogus, or there is no such thing as a gift from god in that sense.
Probably both.