A few people in the forums at Catholic Answers who have read my (and others’, such as Catholic League’s) stance against The Golden Compass didn’t react very favorably. A usual reply: “Come on, it’s just a novel!” or “You’re over-reacting. Kids are smarter than that! They’re not idiots!” or “Reading Harry Potter isn’t going to turn them into witches!” In response, let me explain.

Kids are not idiots. I never said that they were.

But shielding them from secular humanism and militant atheism is really no different from shielding kids from drugs or sex or violence in the media. Obviously most kids are smart enough to know that drugs are bad and that violence is bad and that they shouldn’t have premarital sex. But allowing them to be exposed to movies with gratuitous debauchery can numb their senses and blunt their better instincts.

Look, reading Harry Potter is not going to make children into witches. Nor is seeing The Golden Compass or playing the video game going to make kids pray to demons. But, that said, each is yet another thing that builds upon the other bad influences to which they are exposed by this Culture of Death.

Gradually, then, it may build to the point where the balance is tipped, and the ‘natural morality’ of secular humanism becomes more attractive than the ’supernatural morality’ of the Faith. Choosing one’s own way — picking what to believe — is preferable to the duty-laden and difficult way of the Church. So they start to feel that they can be ‘deep’ and ’spiritual’ without going to Mass. They may believe that there is no need for Confession because sin doesn’t really matter; it’s just good or bad choices in life. They don’t need to pray because there isn’t someONE to pray to, just a general sense of spiritual awareness to become attuned to.

This is how the devil works — not usually by possession or converting people to satanists or occultists or sadists, but by gradually increasing the distance between someone and God.

Remember The Screwtape Letters? Also a work of fiction, but incredibly insightful. Makes you think…

Lex orandi, lex credendi. If you take aware the prayer; take away the turning toward God; then the person starts to believe that he has the power, within himself, to run his own life. And that’s the fatal mistake that can doom him to Hell.

Anyway, this is what the anxiety over these secularist (let alone militant atheist) works is all about. We’re not worried that our kids will start wearing witching hats or shouting spells or what have you. We’re worried that they will fall further from the Faith.