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Thursday, September 14, 2006

Sydney Morning Herald: a case of shoddy journalism

Here's an example, about words and sentiments allegedly coming from the Vatican, "the exorcist", and Papa Benedict XVI:

  THE Vatican has never been a fan of Harry Potter, but its chief exorcist has gone one step further and condemned J. K. Rowling's fictional boy wizard as downright evil.

"Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil," says Father Gabriele Amorth, the Pope's "caster-out of demons".

The books contained numerous positive references to the satanic art, falsely drawing a distinction between black and white magic, he told the Daily Mail in London. In the same interview, Father Amorth said he was convinced that Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler were possessed by the devil.

Last year the Pope, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, described Harry Potter as a potentially corrupting influence.

Luckily, the truth was not hard to uncover with a little research, as done in this post from Jimmy Akin's blog.

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