VATICAN CITY—At a recent press conference, Catholic priest Peter Fleetwood was asked whether the magic embraced by fictional world Harry Potter and the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was a problem for members of the Catholic Church. Some religious groups have condemned the Harry Potter series for glamorizing the occult.

Responding that “Harry Potter does not represent a problem,” Mr. Fleetwood, of the secretariat of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences, also said that “In each one’s childhood there have been fairy godmothers, magicians, angels and witches, which are not bad things but a help for children to understand the conflict between good and evil.”

Mr. Fleetwood believed that the author of the Harry Potter series “is a Christian, perhaps not in the sense that every bishop would like, but she lives like a Christian and writes as such.”

Among those attending the press conference were Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, and Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Source: The Akron Beacon Journal