Pornography "One of the Most Pervasive and Destructive Problems in Our Society" – Philly Cardinal

LifeSiteNews ^ | 6/9/06 | Hilary White

[wagglebee]

Cardinal Justin Rigali, writing in the Catholic Standard and Times, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said that the modern media’s obsession with pornography is “one of the most pervasive and destructive problems in our society.”
 
“Our society," the Cardinal wrote, “is inundated with sex and sensuality largely from the media. Films, television programs, and advertisements are loaded with sexual reference as well as the promotion of sexual promiscuity.”
 
The all-pervasiveness of sexual imagery in the media has led to the vast proliferation of pornography on the internet where it is accessible to anyone who can use a keyboard. It is also increasingly frustrating for law enforcement officials around the world that sexual predators have begun using the internet to target children.
 
In November, 2004, a US Senate hearing discussing the dangers of addiction heard evidence that addiction to pornography has ruined lives and destroyed families. Virginia Tech, professor James B. Weaver said studies show that extended exposure to pornography creates "sexual callousness, the erosion of family values and diminished sexual satisfaction."
 
Rigali called pornography “a cancer upon contemporary culture.” “Addictive in nature, many have been entangled in its lure and have caused great psychological and emotional harm to themselves and even to spouses and other family members.”
 
At the same senate committee hearing in 2004, US lawmakers heard evidence that corroborates the Cardinal’s assertion. University of Pennsylvania sexual trauma program co-director Mary Anne Layden said pornography addiction has similar effects on the brain as heroin or crack cocaine addiction.
 
The Cardinal writes, “Violence, sexual abuse, psychological trauma and ruptured relationships are the fruit of pornography, which, astonishingly, is a multi-billion dollar industry.”
 
Read Cardinal Rigali’s article:
http://www.cst-phl.com/main.html

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Suppose that everyone in society decided to spend MOST of their leisure time viewing, using and even producing pornography, which would obviously be a vast increase from it's current prevalence. If pornography is “one of the most pervasive and destructive problems in our society”, then we would expect that our society would then become more destructive with such an increase. I fail to see how that could happen..."

In such a case, emnvision few or no loving and sexually harmonious couples, stable marriages, normal happy families, or emotionally healthy, cherished, well-raised and well-cared for children.

The above would be the total loss of what makes life gratifying, satisfying, and joyful --- what makes life worth living --- for most of the human race.

If that's not destructive, I don't know what is.

[thinking]

are you sure that you are on the proper forum?...your post sure smacks of delusional liberal rhetoric...the sort of knee-jerk reaction, that anything conservative, is hostile in its intent....I recommend that you reread the Cardinals words...

[starbase]

1. Pornography is prostitution. The people having sex so you can watch and get your jollies are getting paid, so you are watching prostitutes having at it. Of course, if prostitution doesn't bother you, this won't either.

Very true. Most who wouldn't go with a prostitute would watch a porno, never thinking it's basically the same thing! (that being participation in prostitutional acts). Insidious.

[dsc]

"Unless you wish to somehow eliminate porn globally"

Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. Even if it can't be eliminated globally, we should make explicit our condemnation of it.

"or eliminate the Bill of Rights"

We really need to get one thing straight: the Bill of Rights was not written to protect pornography nor, properly applied, does it do so. It protects freedom of political speech and freedom of religion.

"I don't see how you can very well stop people from viewing porn produced outside the country."

That should not stop us from condemning the practice.

We can't stop people from committing murder, either, but we don't for that reason legalize it.

[muir_redwoods]

"Pornography "One of the Most Pervasive and Destructive Problems in Our Society" – Philly Cardinal"

Yes, Your Eminence and, in your opinion, how does it compare with child-rape?

[supercat]

We really need to get one thing straight: the Bill of Rights was not written to protect pornography nor, properly applied, does it do so. It protects freedom of political speech and freedom of religion.

Whether or not the First and Fourteenth Amendments protect pornographic images, there would be no practical way to enforce a ban on the domestic consumpiton of imported porn without undermining the Fourth.

Further, I fail to see how it is somehow worse for someone to watch a video of a few couples having sex than for the person to pick up a stranger in a bar for a one-night stand. To be sure, neither behavior is conducive to finding a good stable relationship, but I don't think "normal" porn (as opposed to rape porn, child porn, etc.) is the problem.

Perhaps the ability for people to receive sexual experience or sexual stimulation by other means has reduced people's efforts to seek stable relationships, but there are many, many other factors as well. Women's lib has made it much harder to find a good wife, and much riskier to get married. IMHO, the popularity of alternative sexual outlets is a result of that, rather than the cause.

[Lilllabettt]

The Cardinal forgot to add diddling little boys by priest in his charge.

Slander, calumny and detraction are sins.

Those people who will not refrain from slander, calumny or detraction because they are sins, should refrain from them anyway, just because they make their arguments stink.

[little jeremiah]

"Goodbye Good Men" (can't remember the author at the moment) documents the Lavender Mafia of homosexuals more or less taking over a lot of the seminaries, at least in the US, some time ago. Hopefully they've all been cleaned out now.

[little jeremiah]

You really don't know much about my POV, Melas. With all due respect, and we have agreed with each other on occasion!

[supercat]

I don't consider myself pro-porn, but find that the arguments against it are not compelling. 1. Pornography is prostitution. The people having sex so you can watch and get your jollies are getting paid, so you are watching prostitutes having at it. Of course, if prostitution doesn't bother you, this won't either.

Depending upon location, visiting prostitutes will either be dangerous, expensive, or both. Some of the arguments against prostitution apply to porn; some do not. Also, some people who shoot amateur porn are couples who would engage in sex with or without the camera. They may behave differently with the camera present, but they'd be sexually-active couples regardless.

Also, Mosaic law does not forbid prostitution; Proverbs makes clear that a man who fails to focus on finding and servicing his wife is a fool, but other than a general proscription against foolish behavior and a specific restriction against priests' daughters prostituting themselves, prostitution is permitted.

Paul's letters speak negatively of fornicators, but there is still a big difference between adultery (which society is called upon to forbid and punish) and fornication (which people should refrain from themselves, but which society as a whole is not called upon to forbid)

2. Many prostitutes/porn "actresses" were molested when young, are drug addicts, are sexually abused as part of their trade, and so on. By contributing to the porn industry, you are helping more young women enter the seamy world of sex for money.

Some are, some aren't. If adults voluntarily decides to enter the trade (or, for that matter, if both members of an adult couple decide they want the world to see their sexual relations), why should your judgement that they shouldn't override their judgement to do so?

3. The only reason porn is everywhere is because Larry Flynt and other scum teamed up with the ACLU to force porn on every community in the nation. If the states still had any states' rights, local communities and states could define their own standards. So liber(al)tarians sqwaking about "nanny state" should shut up - it's the ultimate "Big Daddy" state forcing immorality on everyone, thanks to the ACLU and pornographers.

Technology makes it unstoppable, regardless of what the laws say.

4. Since porn is so easily availabe, more and more kids are seeing it at younger and younger ages. Okay, so parents should control their kids. Practically speaking, the only way to completely protect your kids is getting harder and harder - can't even let them loose at the library or go to other peoples' houses. This argument is like saying that people can live at the town dump and have no rats or flies. You can keep your own house clean but if you live surrounded by filth the rats and flies will come in anyway.

The world is full of nasty things. It's no longer possible to shelter children from all the bad things; it is therefore necessary to immunize them. Teach children properly and an occasional porno spam won't hurt them.

5. Since porn is by nature not really satisfying, the bar has to be lowered more and more so people can get a "thrill". So porn gets weirder and weirder - S&M, tortures, animals, children, and so on. Now pornographers are recruiting kids via places like MySpace.

What portion of users "escalate"? My impression is that by far the most popular types of porn involve either women showing themselves off to the viewer, or heterosexual couples engaging in reasonably-normal sexual activities. Nastier stuff exists, but I doubt that it's really as popular.

6. There is a connection between pornography and sex crimes, no matter how much porn supporters pretend there isn't.

Nearly anyone who would be predisposed to commit sex crimes would be predisposed to seek sexual gratification by any easy method they could. So it would be surprising if very many sex criminals didn't use porn. What studies show a relationship between porn use and sex crimes beyond that obvious one?

7. Men who watch porn a lot have a more difficult time relating in a realistic and close way with the real women in their lives. Focusing on sex acts with strangers via media is a sickness, it is not healthy, and if anyone wants to say this is not true, ask any woman whose husband, boyfriend, or fiance has a porn fixation and ask her if she is fine with it.

Men men use porn because they have a difficult time relating in a realistic and close way with real women. Using porn probably doesn't help their condition, but it isn't the cause. To be sure, there are some men who would rather look at pictures of naked strangers than at a real live woman, and I'll admit I don't really understand that, but I would expect most men would rather look at a real live woman if one is available than look at porn, even if they'd rather look at porn than look at nothing.

8. Anything that helps undermines families undermines everyone.

I'd put pornography pretty far down on the list of things that undermine families. Porn is a symptom more than a cause; attempts to attack symtoms of social problems tend to backfire and produce more social problems.

[Melas]

Of course we have, and I'm sure we'll agree with each other on future occasions as well. It's still ok to argue politely at the dinner table. We can hold differing views on some subjects and still agree the rest of the time.

[little jeremiah]

I sincerely appreciate your respect and comments, and if you were here in person, I'd be honored to shake your hand! I don't agree with everything, and would like to carry on, but can't at the moment. Maybe later.

[ktscarlett66]

Benjamin Franklin had a son out of wedlock - William Franklin. He was raised by Benjamin and his commonlaw wife Deborah. Benjamin couldn't marry Deborah because *she* was already married!! And William's son Temple fathered a child out of wedlock by his stepmother's younger sister. Jefferson had Sally Hemmings (who was the half sister of Jefferson's wife Martha - they shared a father.)

Check out the history they didn't teach you in school, lol. It may not have been in Paris but the Founding Fathers weren't necessarily into marital fidelity and monogamy.

[Antoninus]

Check out the history they didn't teach you in school, lol. It may not have been in Paris but the Founding Fathers weren't necessarily into marital fidelity and monogamy.

OK, so you didn't answer my challenge about Franklin in Paris. To cite two examples of Founding Fathers who weren't exactly paragons of husband-hood and then extrapolate that to *all* the Founding Fathers is pretty weak.

The history they never taught us in school was regarding the religious faith of many of the Founders. I had to learn about that on my own.

[ventana]

If I had to teach my religious ed my view of why porn is wrong, here's one way I would do so:

Have you ever hung out with somebody, gone to their house because they had a pool, or a plasma tv, or maybe let them buy you stuff but you weren't really their friend? You didn't really like them, and, well, basically you were using them? You got your kicks and had some fun but it was phony and fake, wasn't it. Because it wasn't borne out of true friendship and it demeaned the person you used, but it also demeaned you, too. And it would be hard to put your finger on it, but you know you felt it was wrong.

Porn's like that, too. You are using somebody for your own private kicks; they aren't really yours; and you kind of feel demeaned for doing it.

Only God can give you the person to enjoy in an intimate way. He gives it to you in trust: it's marriage. Other than that person, nobody else belongs to you in that way.
V's wife.

[Thorin]

I see from your profile you have three daughters. Reflect on the fact that those are someone's daughters posing in pornography and how you'd feel if they were yours, before dismissing concern over pornography with an anti-Catholic sneer.

[Antoninus]

Damn straight. My freedom to do what I want, when I want, so long as I harm or defraud no one, is EXACTLY the kind of freedom worth killing and dying for.

So for you, spankin' the monkey is worth killing and dying for? That's an amazingly pathetic statement.

And my first-born son will be shipping out to Iraq in a few months to fight the barbarians on their home turf, to defend my right (and yours, by the way) to do just that!

Neither I nor you have a right to obscenity. I don't subscribe to Larry Flynt's perverse version of the First Amendment.

It's LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, not "Freedom for me, but not for thee".

The "right to masturbate/right to porn" never existed in this country until the 1960s. Every SCOTUS decision up to that point affirmed that obscenity is not protected under the Constitution. Notice:

Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire (1942):
"There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting' words....It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

Also:

Roth vs. The United States (1957)

"Obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected freedom of speech or press--either (1) under the First Amendment, as to the Federal Government, or (2) under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as to the States.... In the light of history, it is apparent that the unconditional phrasing of the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance.... The protection given speech and press was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.... All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance--unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion--have the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests; but implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance.

Is it just me, or are you and yours advocating the imposition of a theocratic state in America?

It's just you. I don't want some phony "sexual liberty" trumping true religious liberty--which is already happening all across this country.

If so, then the Culture War is about to have a second front opened up.

Yawn. If you think porn is worth killing for, you're already my enemy.

We libertarian Republicans sided with the Christian Right to form a coalition to defeat the totalitarian, America-hating Socialists.

What, all 15 of you?

Do not push us. Make no mistake - we will leave you out to dry if it appears that you are pushing for authoritarian rule.

Authoritarian? You mean like a guy in a black robe demanding that children not be allowed to pray in school? Or mandating that a strip club be permitted to operate in a town that voted overwhelmingly to ban it? Or insisting that a state accept two men as "married"? Or demanding that a monument in the shape of a cross be taken down from public land? Those kinds of authoritarians?

[supercat]

If I had to teach my religious ed my view of why porn is wrong, here's one way I would do so:

I'd go even simpler. Your goal in life should be to find a relationship with a suitable woman and marry her. Once you do that, you will find intimate relations with her to be extremely pleasurable and fulfilling. Nothing else in life can compare with the fulfillment you will get from a good marriage.

There are easier ways to get some of the pleasure, including looking at pornographic pictures or videos, or picking up women for one-night stands. Those ways will give some of the pleasure, but won't give you the fulfillment. The more time you spend seeking immediate pleasure, the harder time you'll have finding a fulfilling relationship.

Note that it's not necessary to bring in any religious or moral overtones. Even someone who's only interested in himself and cares nothing about morals will still benefit from the message above. It's not necessary to punish people for succoming to temptation; just let them know what they're missing by doing so.

[murphE]

Damn straight. My freedom to do what I want, when I want, so long as I harm or defraud no one, is EXACTLY the kind of freedom worth killing and dying for.

It is a myth that pornography harms no one. And true freedom is the liberty to do right, not to do "whatever I want", that is license.