Vatican Exorcist Says Yoga and Harry Potter are Satanic

When not busy covering up the sexual abuse of children and youth, the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy continues to focus on total batshitery - like finding "satanic" elements in all number of things. The bitter old men in dresses have it backwards, of course - it is they themselves and their feudal style rule of the Church that are satanic. A case in point in the lunacy that passes for serious discussion comes from Father Gabriele Amorth, a former exorcist for the Vatican, says yoga and Harry Potter are tools of the devil. Yoga's big sin is that it might lead to Hindu-like thoughts on spirituality. Amorth also claims that the Harry Potter books convince children to believe in black magic - Amorth's own stock in trade. It's amazing that children can separate fictional stories and fantasy from reality but the nasty old men in Rome cannot. Here are highlights from the Daily News on this insanity:

The Vatican’s former chief exorcist says yoga and Harry Potter are tools of the devil. “Practicing yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter,” Father Gabriele Amorth said this week.

Those seemingly “innocuous” Potter books convince kids to believe in black magic, he said. “In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses,” said Amorth.

As for yoga, it leads to Hinduism and “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation,” the 86-year-old priest said.

Amorth made the hellraising remarks at a film festival in the Italian city of Umbria, where he was invited to introduce a movie about exorcism called “The Rite,”

“Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence,” he said. “He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations.”

Science can’t explain evil, added Amorth, who claims to have performed 50,000 exorcisms before retiring in 2000. He is both founder and honorary president for life of the International Association of Exorcists.

While the Jesuit’s remarks might strike many as the ravings of a man possessed, Pope Benedict once warned of “subtle seductions” in the Potter books that “dissolve Christianity in the soul.” The Pope has also warned that yoga “can degenerate into a cult of the body.”

I ask again, why does anyone listen to much less treat these nutcases with difference?