Priests at a Catholic parish in northern Poland have drawn criticism after they burned books, including from the “Harry Potter” series, and other items that their owners said had evil forces.
Images from the burning at Gdansk’s Mother of Church parish on Sunday were posted on Facebook by Catholic foundation SMS z Nieba (SMS from Heaven,) which uses unconventional means to carry out its religious work.
In the pictures, flames are consuming an African wooden mask, a small Buddhist figure, figurines of elephants and books on personality and magic, as well as those by J.K. Rowling. They were all brought in by parishioners, who were encouraged by the priests to clear their homes of objects that had evil forces. Influential in Poland, the Catholic Church objects to “Harry Potter” books, which are international best-sellers, saying they promote sorcery.
In the photos, priests and altar boys can be seen watching the burning objects.
The foundation said the book burning was intended to alert parishioners to bad influences that it says come from magic and the occult.
Many comments under the Facebook postings condemned the book burning, recalling that also happened in Nazi Germany before World War II. Some said this taught hatred and asked if the next in line for burning were witches, like in the Middle Ages.
The event was criticized by the Rev. Wojciech Parafianowicz, spokesman for the diocese of Koszalin, where the foundation is based, who said he “did not like this form of priestly activity, which is wrong.”
But, speaking with the wpolityce.pl news portal, Parafianowicz argued that the occult and magic “have a bad influence on human life.”
A popular commentator on religion, Pawel Guzynski, a Dominican Friar, said on Facebook the burning was “rather the fall of wise faith than of unwise superstition.”
The church enjoys great authority in predominantly Catholic Poland because of its historical and political backing. It has the support of the conservative government many of whose members are Catholic.
Nicholas Sanchez
based priest
Cooper Garcia
>including from the "Harry Potter" series Bazowane i patrycjuszpigułkowe.
Ethan Anderson
>Poland's Catholic Church has released a report admitting hundreds of clergymen abused children between 1990 and 2018. oops hehe anyway look at this silly stunt to divert the atten- i mean this serious action to counter the insidious influence of the occult on our frail, vulnerable, delicious youth
Jack Nelson
There arguments and conclusions for burning HP books are wrong, yes, but their intuition is correct. First, kids will get hooked reading the series, and 20 years later, they are larping as private wizard school kids, autistically masturbate over the setting and characters, and play fantasy world soccer where the rules make no sense. Christians were right. Harry Potter is a pitfall of idolatry and commodity fetishism.
Noah Gonzalez
Good. If any book series needs to be burned, it's that bullshit👌
Ian Sanchez
based and redpilled
Juan Adams
>Some said this taught hatred and asked if the next in line for burning were witches, like in the Middle Ages. daily reminder that the inquisition did literally nothing wrong and it was a fair justice system
That whole chapter was hilarious because it was the priest himself choosing whether a book was bad or not and the only way he would've known them was if he was reading them. So it makes you question why a priest would spend time reading all those immoral and evil books. This one was just the priest asking people to bring out their stuff.
James Brown
soo its more like don q then nazis.we are having a chuckle about it.
Ian Kelly
>, figurines of elephants ??? Polish anons get in here and explain this
Gabriel Sanders
getting invaded and annihilated by two of the most powerful and brutal political entities of the 20th century caused Poland to stop giving a fuck
Justin Powell
it is a popular decoration in poland often with Hindu symbolism / aesthetics so it was probably interpreted as a religious symbol of evil Indian pagans sorry for bad english
Benjamin Brown
>burning witches >middle ages you got memed friend
Henry Jenkins
ScyFy aired Harry Potter the other day. Thought that was weird.
Jason Gomez
If Rowling wasn't such a Kurwa, maybe this wouldn't have happened.
