Fr. Roderick Vonhögen of CATHOLIC INSIDER has just kindly e-mailed me a transcript he made of a recent broadcast of Vatican Radio dealing with the alleged remarks of then-Cardinal Ratzinger on the Harry Potter books.
The piece was an interview with Msgr. Peter Fleedwood, the Vatican official who initially made (what turn out to be) moderately pro-Potter comments when asked a question about the books at a press conference.
I’ve put the entire text of the interview in the extended body of this post (click below to read it). I should say that I don’t agree with everything Msgr. Fleedwood says (e.g., I don’t think that the Harry Potter books are any great shakes as literature), but reading his side of the story sheds interesting light on the events in question.
In particular, let me call attention to a couple of things he said. First, he mentions something that I thought was likely the case, though I didn’t want to conjecture it without evidence. Msgr. Fleedwood, though, knows the workings of Vatican offices better than I and has more of a basis to say it, so here goes:
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.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Msgr. Fleedwood were correct on this point. Folks in important positions–including those in the Vatican–often use ghostwriters, and it would not be surprising at all to learn that routine correspondence such as thank you notes like the one in question were handled by assistants and then presented for the boss’s signature.
Fr. Fleedwood continues:
She sent me the book, and I found it a very unsatisfactory book. I
don’t think she understands English humour. For example, she said: one
sign that these books are making fun of Judaism and Christianity is
that Voldemort, the wicked magician, who is the great evil power
against whom Harry Potter has to fight, is referred to often as ‘he who
must not be named’, and she takes this as an insult to the name of God
in a similar way that Adonai, which is often written as Yahweh, is the
name that should not be said in Jewish religion. Well I replied to her:
don’t you know that even within English families, men who make fun of
their relationship with women in a nice, lighthearted way say: "Oh, she
who should not be named," meaning the power in the house, their wife.
You know, I think it was meant on that kind of level.
This comment also rings true for me, and for several reasons. First, I’ve seen my share of anti-New Age books that go paranoid in finding connections between things that aren’t there. (I wish people would write more serious and sober anti-New Age books, because the paranoid ones give the whole genre a bad name.)
Second, if you read the Potter books or watch the movies, it’s clear that the people in the stories are themselves being paranoid by not saying the name "Voldemort." As Msgr. Fleedwood points out, Harry Potter has the courage to say the name of his enemy and isn’t cowed by the mere mention of the name, like the others are. Thus Rowling isn’t presenting Voldemort’s name as too sacred to mention, she’s presenting everybody but Harry as being too easily spooked. You may or may not like that literarily, but it isn’t a diss at God.
Third, I have my own experience with circumlocutions of this nature. A few years ago I was dating a woman who turned out to be from the planet Yuggoth (the only one of all the women I’ve ever dated). The experience was so surreal (the phrase "Did not know what men are for" comes to mind) that, among the circle of my friends who were aware of the experience at the time, she has become known as "She Who Is Not To Be Named."
Anyway, click below for Msgr. Fleedwood’s comments, courtesy of Fr. Roderick Vonhögen.
Continue reading “Vatican Radio On Pre-16 Potter Brouhaha”
The chunk o’rock to the left is The Rosetta Stone (Dum! Dum! Dum!).
