Open letter to J.K. Rowling: Why she must become Catholic

(LifeSiteNews) — Harry Potter is back in the news. At Christmas, HBO is starting what looks to be a TEN-YEAR series of all seven books. Twitter is currently obsessed with the fan-created character “Malfoid” – and since the woke left wants nothing to do with it, conservatives are enthusing about the Harry Potter series in a wholly new way right now.

Now I know that the Harry Potter series is controversial and that many Christians – including priests – think it shouldn’t be read. But that is a different story.

I want to address something startling that the author, J.K. Rowling, said just over a year ago.

Here’s what she said on X:

I appear to have a God-shaped vacuum inside me.

Those were the words of one of the world’s most famous authors: the creator of Harry Potter confessed that something vital is missing inside her, and that that something was God. Because what else fits into a “God-shaped vacuum,” right?

She also said she’d struggled with faith for decades, and that she’ll “probably go to her grave” with that question unresolved.

Well, Ms. Rowling – because this show is for you, and for any of your fans in the same position – I’m here to tell you that you can resolve that question, and how.

And if you do resolve it, Ms. Rowling, you won’t need to keep battling the darkness of the “trans” movement alone. You’ll have power beyond even “magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable” – as you wrote in Harry Potter.

This is about your soul, Ms. Rowling – and the Truth.

Rowling’s thread

Ms. Rowling, you’re one of – if not the – most popular and best-selling children’s authors of all time.

Once the darling of the media, and a feminist icon, you captured the imagination of the world – and yet you’ve risked it all being fearless in fighting certain cultural evils, and defending the truth on hot-button, unpopular issues.

And now you’re demonized as the great, dogmatic, rigid and hateful “TERF” – the evil queen, as the trans movement sees it, of the anti-trans feminists.

That’s why one of your many enemies challenged you recently, sarcastically asking you whether you’d ever changed your mind on anything.

And your response surprised the world, detailing your drift away from certain liberal dogmas, and your candid reflection on God and faith.

Yes, you said, you’ve changed your mind on lots of things:

• Whether nature or nurture plays a greater role in humans
• Whether differences between the sexes are based on socialization, or something intrinsic
• Whether cannabis is harmless or not.

You even mentioned your changing views from being in favor of assisted suicide, to being against it – with the change being thanks, you said, to your husband, a doctor, opening your eyes to how the vulnerable could be coerced.

This was a stunning reversal. You said it just as Britain’s House of Lords was to debate legalizing assisted suicide. So thank you for that intervention.

But there’s no doubt that your comments about God were the most interesting and surprising.

Although you’ve always identified as a Christian, and emphasized the importance of Christian themes in your work, that has been somewhat hard to see in your public life. And your message reveals why – here it is again:

I’ve struggled with religious faith since my mid-teens. I appear to have a God-shaped vacuum inside me but I never seem quite able to make up my mind what to do about it.

And you said that you expect you’ll never answer this question.

You said you’d change your mind about anything and everything, on the basis of clear evidence – except this “God conundrum,” because you don’t know what evidence you’d have to see in order to come down on one side or the other.

“That’s why,” you said, “I’ll probably go to my grave with that particular personal matter unresolved.”

That vacuum, that fear, is tragic and unnecessary. There is an answer.

The vacuum and the culture

You once said you “wrestle” with faith and the afterlife.

The great mathematician Blaise Pascal called the vacuum you mentioned an “infinite abyss” only God can fill; St. Augustine said our hearts are restless until they rest in God. And I’m going to show you the only way to fill that “God-shaped vacuum” inside you.

But that vacuum isn’t just in your soul – it’s written large all over society.

And when a people banish God, the vacuum does not stay empty – it fills with gullibility. Deny the Creator and you end up denying the creature: the road runs from contraception to castration clinics, from sentimental “compassion” to euthanasia.

But do you see how it all snowballs? Once sex differences are denied in principle, transgenderism follows in practice. You saw that and refused to lie. But the only solution is to return, not to some previous wave of feminism, but to God.

You’ve paid a price for saying true things in public – threats, abuse, doxxing – and you’ve consistently pointed to those harmed far more than you.

But you’ve been harmed too. You’ve been slandered and canceled by those progressive circles that once adored you, just for saying men can’t become women. Many of the Harry Potter actors, who owe their careers and fortunes to you and your work, now disown you with insulting ingratitude.

Few people would keep going.

So why, Ms. Rowling, do you keep going?

It’s because you have a visible love for truth.

READ: ‘Malfoid’ memes are the latest bizarre front in the trans war against JK Rowling

That love for truth is good; it’s also a homing signal. It points you back to the One who made you. And that God-shaped vacuum inside you will never be filled with mere truths: what you need is TRUTH himself.

More and more people realize this. Gone are the days of Richard Dawkins’ gloating about the New Atheists. Nobody’s interested in that anymore. It’s only been a few short years since then, and most people are already horrified by what it unleashed and what’s grown in that vacuum. Even, I’m sure you know, Dawkins himself.

One commentator, our own Jonathon Van Maren, put it this way: “Many who crowed with glee at the alleged death of Christianity now, suddenly, feel the urge to mourn at its funeral.”

But in truth, Christianity isn’t dead at all: it’s just out there, in the wilderness, waiting to be rediscovered.

Your own fiction points the way. The voluntary self-sacrifice of Harry’s mother, Lily, shields her son for life; evil is broken by love that faces death. The last book, Deathly Hallows, literally puts Scripture before your readers in the graveyard at Godric’s Hollow: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” and, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

You once said that those two lines, and I quote, “almost epitomize the whole series.” But they truly epitomize reality itself too – the reality of Christ.

In your imagination and intellect, you know that there’s a truth here. All you need to do is choose to accept it. The very truths that moved millions through your fiction are true in real life, in Jesus Christ. You need to turn to Him – the real hero, whom your hero Harry Potter only symbolized – and let Him enlighten you.

You said you didn’t know what you’d have to see to settle the “God conundrum.” Well, here’s a short case, staked out on objective motives for credibility, history and public facts. Let’s dig in.

Rational arguments

First, you know all about the power of prophecy: the entire plot of Harry Potter is based on the prophecy of “the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord.”

But for us, prophecy isn’t just a plot device for a good story. It’s one of several proofs that God exists, that Jesus of Nazareth is who He says He is, and that the Catholic Church is His mystical body on earth – the means by which we are united with Him.

Long before Jesus’s life, Israel’s prophets foretold that a real chosen one would come, and that through Him, their people would be a “light to the nations.” How? By the nations of the world recognizing their chosen one, the Jewish Messiah, whom they would hail as their King, and who would lead them to the worship of the true God, the God of Abraham.

This is exactly what happened. It’s a clear fulfillment of prophecy, the evidence of which is right before our eyes.

Many of the prophecies about the Messiah himself were really specific, marking out where He would come from, where He’d be born, when He’d be born, what He’d do in his life, how He would die and why, and what would happen to Him after His death.

Even today, the Jews who reject Him retain these prophecies in their scriptures – proving that we Christians didn’t just make them up. That’s a kind of “hostile witness,” you might say, which proves the case even more.

Jesus fulfilled these prophecies – appearing at the right time, fulfilling all sorts of other criteria, teaching with divine authority, being crucified, and rising again. Christianity begins with a public claim about a public event, verifiable in history. And there’s no doubt that this historical coming of Jesus was an event foretold – in detail – long in advance. The only adequate explanation of that, is that He was who He said He was: the divine Messiah and Savior of the world. Any other explanation is simply too far-fetched.

Next, we have a Church which shouldn’t really still exist at all – but nonetheless does. Christ founded a visible body to continue His mission, with leadership deriving from his twelve apostles, with the sacramental worship He left them.

Against all odds, and despite brutal persecution, this Church spread across the Roman Empire and even further. It spread not through violence, but by the strong and sweet force of its own arguments, the supernatural witness of the martyrs, prophecy, and miracles… and by providing the answer to that God-shaped vacuum in the hearts of so many – from emperors and kings to slaves.

Across two millennia, despite sinners, scandals and repression, the Catholic Church endures with one creed and one Eucharist across centuries and continents. That endurance is itself a standing “moral miracle,” proving that Christ is who He said He is.

But the moral miracle continues in society. In every age it yields saints, holy men and women, whose lives are morally inexplicable on natural terms, and whose miracles – understood in the more conventional sense – have been soberly investigated and found to be legitimate.

But that’s not all either.

Think about this. The history of the world is divided in two by Christ. Living in the time after His coming, we’re tempted to attribute the radical change in society to causes other than Christ – and we are tempted to underestimate just how bad things were before his coming.

You call yourself a feminist, Ms. Rowling. I’m not a feminist. But feminism would never have even been possible without Christ and the Church reordering things in favor of women in the first place. Prior to His coming, women were simply chattel, a tool for sexual pleasure, and essentially inferior to men. It was Christ’s Church which asserted the dignity and standing of women, and elevated them to a status unknown in the pagan world.

READ: Harry Potter star’s return for JK Rowling production enrages ‘trans’ activists

Now let me be clear about what I’m saying here. I’m not saying “the Church is the real feminism,” or that you should become a Catholic out of gratitude, or something like that.

I’m saying that a change to the world, from contempt for women to their elevation, from barbarism to civilization, from rule by the strong to the rule by law, from individualistic ruthlessness to respect for a moral law, and the adoption of a religion which preaches sacrifice, love, death to self and humility – this is itself a miracle. At any rate, it’s a truly remarkable phenomenon that demands a sufficient explanation – because over time, things decay – they don’t build up.

So, what is it that could cause this? It’s the truth of the Christian religion – and of Christ Himself.

These phenomena really demand such a conclusion, because the alternative explanations are simply unbelievable. That is, non-credible.

You said faith is “believing without seeing proof.” Well, that’s not quite true – but it depends on what you mean by proof.

What I’ve shared with you are what we call motives of credibility – external reasons which are sufficient for a rational person like you to judge that God has spoken, and that the Catholic Church speaks with His authority. They furnish moral certainty – enough to act and give your assent.

You will not have any greater certainty than this, nor do you need it.

But the next step from this moral certainty is not anti-rational: you freely assent to what has been revealed because God Himself, who cannot lie, has revealed it. Only then – when you have given your free assent, moved by grace, based on motives of credibility like I’ve mentioned – does God infuse into you the supernatural virtue of faith, and the certainty which comes with it, and which secures your assent in a way that mere argument or scientific evidence could not.

The fruits of faith

And guess what? It’s then that your God-shaped vacuum will start to be filled, and will overflow. God Himself will fill it – as you will see when you first receive Holy Communion at the Mass.

Your books include the idea of someone investing a physical thing with a part of themselves, so that they live on – but in the Holy Eucharist, Christ Himself is fully and really present, under the appearances of bread and wine. And He is there not for His own sake, but to nourish you, Ms. Rowling, and to fill you – your God-shaped vacuum – with Himself. As God said in one of the Psalms:

I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.

That low-level conflict and doubt you alluded to in that tweet will cease, because your soul will finally be resting in Truth Himself – and He will be resting in you.

You have already been a brave warrior for the truth on many fronts of the “culture war” – but you have not overcome your enemies, and you cannot fight on your own strength forever.

Your battles – for womanhood, the sanctity of life, and even just basic sanity in a post-truth world – cannot be won by human effort alone.

Only with Christ as King can our civilization be saved from the abyss – and only in the Catholic Church, particularly in the Holy Eucharist, will you find the full arsenal of spiritual weapons for this war.

Strengthened by Christ in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, you will come from the altar “like a lion breathing fire, having become terrible to the devil,” as St. John Chrysostom said.

Illuminated by the sacred magisterium of the Church, Christ will “give you a mouth and wisdom,” as He Himself said, “which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay.”

Accompanied by the saints and the light of truth, I actually tremble to think what J.K. Rowling, Catholic, could accomplish.

And don’t fear that in becoming Catholic you would lose yourself or the causes you cherish. On the contrary, they will be purified, and you will find your true self and the true fulfillment of all your best desires.

All the virtues you admire – courage, loyalty, sacrificial love – are perfected in Christ, and He will perfect them in you. All the evils you hate – injustice, tyranny, lies – are ultimately conquered only by Christ, and He will conquer them in you.

You have stood nearly alone, Ms. Rowling, as you have been disowned by friends, colleagues, and, like I said, those who owe their fortunes to YOU.

But in the Catholic Church, you will never stand alone.

Enough of lingering on the threshold. Knock, and the door shall be opened. Step through, into the arms of the Father who has been waiting for you – His beloved daughter. The Church is ready to rejoice over a soul coming home. 

And we, your Catholic friends and admirers, we’re ready to stand with you in Christ’s army, under the banner of the Truth that never changes. 

So, Ms. Rowling – Jo, if I may – we appeal to you today. The time has come to close the final chapter of doubt, and step into the truth. 

Don’t go to your grave, like you said, with the “God question” unresolved. Don’t settle for that empty vacuum inside. The God who shaped your heart for Himself is calling you to more than that. 

He has been calling you in the stories you felt compelled to write, in the conscience that led you to stand up against fashionable lies, and in the very words of truth you chose to quote on a fictional tombstone. Jesus Christ is the answer – the only answer – to every question your heart asks. And His Church is the living bridge that will carry you to Him.

To my fellow Catholics watching this: let us pray fervently for J.K. Rowling’s conversion. Pray that she receives the light of faith and the courage to act on it. And let’s be ready to welcome her with open arms. Imagine the impact of a mind and heart like hers, fully alive with the grace of God! The cultural influence she wields, when it will be united to the truth of the Gospel, could help transform our wounded societies. 

And more importantly, her immortal soul – infinitely precious to Our Lord – would be saved from the misery of a life (and eternity) with a God-shaped vacuum which He is longing to fill.