Nashville school bans Harry Potter books for “actual curses and spells”

Students can no longer check out Harry Potter books at St. Edward Catholic School, an pre-K through 8th grade school in Nashville, Tennessee. According to the Tennessean, Reverend Dan Reehil, a pastor at the school, made the official call to remove the fantasy books due to the content.

“These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception,” Reehil wrote in what we can already see is going to be a very reasonable email. “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 sent the email after a concerned parent reached out to him. He also said he consulted several exorcists in the U.S. and Rome before making his decision, so…good on him for doing research?

This isn’t the first time the Harry Potter books have been censored. According to Newsweek, Christian religious leaders have been protesting against the Harry Potter series for years, deeming them to be satanic. There have even been instances where the books have been burned in bonfires.

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The Catholic Church as a whole has no official stance/comment on the Harry Potter series, but according to Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, each school’s pastor gets to make the final call on matters like this.

"Each pastor has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school. He’s well within his authority to act in that manner."

As a huge Potterhead, I can’t even wrap my head around the idea of a library — especially one frequented by kids — without Harry Potter books. It’s interesting to note that while some schools ban the series, others use it as inspiration. Take the case of Ben VanDonge, a fifth grade teacher who uses traditions from the books/movies to encourage his students.

As far as other schools within this particular diocese (a group of schools that a bishop oversees) go, there may still be some Harry Potter books lingering around. But not at St. Edward.

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