{"id":13271,"date":"2019-10-07T17:32:36","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T21:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=13271"},"modified":"2022-03-24T10:59:52","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T14:59:52","slug":"catholic-school-claims-reading-spells-harry-potter-conjure-spirits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2019\/10\/catholic-school-claims-reading-spells-harry-potter-conjure-spirits","title":{"rendered":"Catholic School Claims Reading the Spells in Harry Potter Books Could Conjure Up Evil Spirits"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee has banned Harry Potter books, warning that the spells and curses in the novels are real and reading them could cause irreversible damage.<\/p>\n

According to the Tennessean, Rev. Dan Reehil, one of St. Edward school\u2019s pastors, says the spells and curses presented in J.K. Rowling\u2019s books are not only real, but could cause problems for children who read them.<\/p>\n

As a result, the school is no longer allowing its pre-K through eighth grade students to check out Harry Potter books from the library.<\/p>\n

The Tennessean published an email sent to parents by Rev. Reehil which read:<\/p>\n

\u201cThese 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is reported that the decision was made after consulting several exorcists in the U.S. and Rome who recommended removing the books.<\/p>\n

While the Catholic Church doesn\u2019t have an official position, each pastor has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school, Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville said.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time the best-selling books have caused controversy in the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

The books that touch on themes like magic and wizardry have been viewed as sacrilegious by many Christian groups and boycotted many times.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, a group of Catholic priests in Poland burned books they considered sacrilegious, including those from the Harry Potter and Twilight series.<\/p>\n

A Catholic evangelical group \u201cSMS from Heaven\u201d posted pictures on its Facebook page showing Harry Potter books on top of a burning fire pit, reports the BBC.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe obey the Word,\u201d the priests said in a now deleted Facebook post which showed photographs of the public book burning and quoting Bible passages from the book of Deuteronomy.<\/p>\n

The pictures also show three priests carrying a basket of books and other items, including an African-styled mask through a church to an outside fire pit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of those who had practiced magic collected their books and everyone. So they calculated their value and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver,\u201d read a caption from the Book of Acts posted by the group.<\/p>\n

Another excerpt from the Book of Deuteronomy said, \u201cBurn the images of their gods. Don\u2019t desire the silver or the gold that is on them and take it for yourself, or you will be trapped by it. That is detestable to the Lord your God.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the post went viral and sparked a great deal of outrage, the Catholic priest who led the public burning of the Harry Potter books has apologized.<\/p>\n

Rev. Rafal Jarosiewicz expressed his regret on Facebook and said the burning of objects linked to the occult was \u201cunfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comments under the original post condemned the act, recalling book-burning during Nazi rule in Germany before the Second World War.<\/p>\n

One user wrote, \u201cCan\u2019t you see how sick this is? What are your plans next, burning witches?\u201d<\/p>\n

Another wrote, \u201cAs a Catholic, I don\u2019t agree with you, burning books is stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the incident, Rev. Jarosiewicz was fined and a group contacted prosecutors about the open fire, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee has banned Harry Potter books, warning that the spells and curses in the novels are real and reading them could cause irreversible damage. According to the Tennessean, Rev. Dan Reehil, one of St. Edward school\u2019s pastors, says the spells and curses presented in J.K. Rowling\u2019s books are not only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":565,"featured_media":13272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[623],"tags":[2592,1755,2594,2595,1083,2593],"class_list":["post-13271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-catholic-news","tag-banning-harry-potter","tag-catholic-news-2","tag-conjuring","tag-evil","tag-harry-potter","tag-spells"],"yoast_head":"\nCatholic School Claims Reading the Spells in Harry Potter Books Could Conjure Up Evil Spirits<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2019\/10\/catholic-school-claims-reading-spells-harry-potter-conjure-spirits\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Catholic School Claims Reading the Spells in Harry Potter Books Could Conjure Up Evil Spirits\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee has banned Harry Potter books, warning that the spells and curses in the novels are real and reading them could cause irreversible damage. 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