Not so immoral after all: Vatican gives the latest Harry Potter absolution. But as for The Da Vinci Code . . . from Times of London reports that the Vatican and then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, were negative about the first Harry Potter movie and its influence on children - but have changed their tune with the latest release.
Now, however, the Pope appears to have fallen under the Potter spell. The latest in the film series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is on general release in Britain today, and has won surprising praise from the Vatican newspaper. L’Osservatore Romano said yesterday that even though the Potter saga lacked what it called “a reference to the transcendent”, the latest film drew “a clear line of demarcation between good and evil, making clear that good is right, and that in some cases this involves hard work and sacrifices”.
It also sided with Harry in his battle with You Know Who, arguing that the film promoted the values of friendship, altruism, and loyalty but made clear that “the search for immortality epitomised by Lord Voldemort” was wrong. It said it had struck the right balance in its treatment of teenage romance, with the child characters credibly “growing from adolescents into adults”.
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