Nashville Catholic School Bans Harry Potter Books at Exorcist’s Advice

A Catholic school in Nashville has banned the Harry Potter books on the advice of several Catholic exorcists. The School’s pastor argues that the book’s references to magic are a “clever deception.”

According to a local news report, students at St. Edward Catholic School in Nashville won’t be reading the Harry Potter books anytime soon. Last week, Reverend Dan Reehil, the school’s pastor announced that the popular fantasy series was being removed from the school’s library.

“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,” Reehil said in an email. Reehil says later in the email that he pulled the books after heeding the advice of several Catholic exorcists.

Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, claims that Reehil has the authority to ban the Harry Potter series. “Each pastor has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school,” Hammel said in a short comment. “He’s well within his authority to act in that manner.”

Hammel said that parents of Harry Potter fans should have a conversation with their children about the religious themes in the book. “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,” Hammel added.

Despite Reehil’s decision to ban the books, Hammel claims that the school district does not like to engage in censorship. “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,” Hammel finished.

In 2017, Breitbart News columnist Allum Bokhari published a column on the Harry Potter series’ hidden right-wing messages. Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling, a frequent critic of President Trump, was mocked over a typo-laden tweet directed at the president last August.