Vatican exorcist warns of Harry Potter

The Vatican's chief exorcist has warned that reading Harry Potter could lead young people towards Satanism.

Sydney Morning Herald/April 10, 2006

JK Rowling's blockbuster fiction series about a young magician has been deemed dangerous by Father Gabriele Amorth, The Sun reported.

"By reading Harry Potter a young child will be drawn into magic and from there it is a simple step to Satanism and the Devil," he was quoted as saying.

"You start with Harry Potter, who comes across as a likeable wizard, but you end up with the Devil.

"There is no doubt that the signature of the Prince of Darkness is clearly within these books."

In 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) reportedly wrote two letters to a critic of the Harry Potter series.

"It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly," he wrote.