A Roman Catholic school in Tennessee has allegedly removed the Harry Potter books from their library because they contain ''real'' hexes.
St Edward Catholic School in Nashville has just opened up a new library in time for the 2019-2020 academic year. However, the pastor responsible for the library's stock has removed the Harry Potter books from the shelves this year, citing concerns that they could be used to channel Satanic energies.
Check out this video of the ultimate Potter fan who knows the books by heart:Author J.K. Rowling's fantasy series is one of the most popular book franchises of all time. And while the Catholic church has no official stance on the Harry Potter series, Reverend Dan Reehill, a member of staff at the school, has allegedly consulted with exorcists in the US and at the Vatican, who have told him that the depiction of magic and sorcery detailed in the books is heretical.
In an email sent to parents of his pupils, Reverend Reehill wrote: "These 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."
Defending the decision, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville Rebecca Hammel stated: "Each pastor has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school. He’s well within his authority to act in that manner. I know that in the process they were going through and kind of weeding out some of the content in hopes of sprucing it up and improving the circulation."
She added: "Should parents deem that this or any other media to be appropriate we would hope that they would just guide their sons and daughters to understand the content through the lens of our faith. We really don’t get into censorship in such selections other than making sure that what we put in our school libraries is age-appropriate materials for our classrooms."
Check out this scene from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:However, despite the fact that pupils aren't allowed to read the books in the library, I have no doubt that the pupils there will somehow manage to get their hands on copies of the books through some other means. After all, that's what Harry, Ron and Hermione would do!
