Flying on a broom evil, walking on water good

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the penultimate chapter in J.K. Rowling's epic fantasy series that went on sale around the globe at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, sold an astonishing 6.9 million copies its first day in bookstores in the U.S. alone.

However, Harry Potter's immense popularity among the children of the planet has raised a controversy with the church, as well as with individual fundamentalist lunatics who claim Harry Potter glorifies witchcraft which, as we all know in the developed world, is the work of Satan. According to this particular lunatic, reading Harry Potter books or watching movies is likely to instill unclean thoughts in children, whereby they become obsessed with flying on brooms, casting spells, killing evil wizards and other forms of magical dementia. "Harry Potter stories are making the children of this world act like ....ummm children", commented this devout Christian.

The "evil" magic and witchcraft practiced in the Harry Potter stories are in stark contrast to the stories in the Bible which celebrate "good magic" like the parting of the Red Sea, walking on water, cursing a fig tree to make it wither, turning people into pillars of salt, a variety of assorted plagues and pestilences raining down on an unwitting populace (blood, frogs, boils, death of firstborn children) and the magical resurrection of Jesus, our Lord and Savior from his dead body.

The artist formerly known as Cardinal Ratzinger and now called "Pope Benedict XVI" (for tax purposes) has also expressed his disapproval to the subtle seduction underlying the Harry Potter stories. When asked to elaborate, the cardinal replied in a funny sounding German accent, "You know I did not actually read it. It's 700 pages long and I am already 80 years old".

In other news, December 25th, or as it's called colloquially, "Christmas", will be celebrated this year as usual, signifying the magical birth of a baby to a woman who never had sex.