How to get kids to hate your church

Father Ronald Barker has pulled the Harry Potter books from from the St. Joseph Parish School in Wakefield Massachusetts. He’s been there for two years already so, it seems odd he chose to take them out of the library now. I wonder if the recent news had anything to do with it.

According to these quotes from the WCVB web site the reason is:

“I’m in the business of Jesus and this is the enemy camp,” Barker said. “It has sorcery spells and it’s not appropriate.”

The removal, according to Barker, spares those students who are vulnerable to cult practices and sees his decision as no different than protecting students who are allergic to peanut butter.

“What I did is start a spiritual peanut butter ban on Harry Potter,” he said.

Of course he must be basing his decision on actually knowing what is in the books, right?

Barker said he had not read any of the Harry Potter books and had no plans to do so.

Wrong 😦 Watch him start pulling the other fairy tale and fantasy books or banning Halloween Trick or Treats next.

The Catholic church has no formal policy on Rowling’s books.

Well at least the rest of the Catholic Church won’t be getting the kids ticked off at the church.

Update – I noticed a PDF on my desktop after I finished this post. It was the current weekly bulletin for the parish. Father Barker’s writing shows me he is an old school priest (emphasis mine).

It is one of the spiritual works of mercy to pray for the dead. Some of our loved ones are in the process of being purified (Purgatory) and our prayers are able to hasten the process. May we always remember to pray for our loved ones and to also pray for the souls who have no one praying for them. I encourage you to have a funeral Mass for your loved ones when they die, not a funeral service. A funeral service does not provide the graces that your loved ones would receive from a Mass. Sometimes I hear a family member saying that their loved one just wanted a service at the funeral home. I tell them that on the other side the loved one is now screaming to have a Mass, have a Mass.

Yep, old school, scare everybody about what happens after death, great way to comfort the bereaved, NOT.