Fantasy Worlds, Go!

I was born and raised Catholic Christian. During my high school years in or around freshman year, I distinctly remember my private catholic school religion teacher getting upset and speaking against the Golden Compass and the film when it came out. I always wanted to know why. I knew the church was against the Da Vinci code because it claims things that, if true, would destroy the church's doctrines and teachings. I was always so curious what the Golden Compass had in it that was freaking out the church so much. All I knew was that God was “portrayed” in the last book of the series as a crippled old man that is killed by the main characters. As interesting as that is, I was still in the dark about what was in the Golden Compass that was so bad that Catholics basically boycotted the film.
The story was very interesting to me. I liked the idea of having your spirit be represented by an animal or, what the book calls, a deamon that follows you around and I really liked that Lyra's deamon didn't have a specific form yet because of her spiritual immaturity. I did notice that the Magisterium named in the book is supposed to be the Catholic Church and they're portrayed as the villains. But for me, it was a fantasy world where your spirit had a physical manifestation. It is obviously a work of fiction. Regardless of it's stabs at the church I couldn't let myself get hung up on it. Instead, I was more interested in the story about Lyra finding her friend and the importance of the Dust. I did also and watch the film The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe based on C. S. Lewis's book of the same name, which I read when in grade school. I can definitely see the parallels and differences between the two. The film was definitely an allegory to christianity (though I later found out Lewis didn't intend for it). This story was about forgiveness and finding yourself and has a happy ending. Compass, on the other hand, is kind of brutal. The friend Lyra was fighting for the entire time dies at the end! Children are being ripped from their souls and dying for a source of power to do experiments. I think it was a good story, although it was thematically dark at times. Even as a somewhat Catholic Christian, I still enjoyed the story for what it is.