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

[steve-b]

Or mandating that a strip club be permitted to operate in a town that voted overwhelmingly to ban it?

What does that have to do with anything? This is not a socialist armpit (where the masses own the property); it is a free republic (where the property is privately owned).

[steve-b]

We are at war with savages who recognize no bounds on their murderous assaults, the government has its hand ever-deeper into the pockets of the productive, the people are bound by a web of regulations that would make the regime of King George III look like a libertarian utopia, and some clown watching pictures of nekkid wimmin is "One of the Most Pervasive and Destructive Problems in Our Society".

Puh-leeze.

[steve-b]

I believe it is harmful, and always has been, to society as a whole.

And yet it is the accepted wisdom here that it's the liberals who are guided by what they believe rather than the objective facts of reality.

[steve-b]

This of course is a completely liberal concept which denies the truth of original sin, the concept that man has a fallen nature and has does not have the power within himself to overcome and resist temptation to perversion and sin without the help of divine grace.

This "truth" is testable -- if one finds a single example of an atheist who resists temptation, then it fails.

We have several such counterexamples right here on FR.

[steve-b]

While we're on the subject of your definition of "child molesting", how do you define the words "alone", "sex", and "is"?

[steve-b]

Whether or not that is "the answer" depends entirely on what the question is.

For example, if the question is "Is government coercion the proper way to make people better?" then one joins FR if the answer is "no" or DU if the answer is "yes".

[steve-b]

we should endorse pornography by making it legal. That argument has no validity.

While it's certainly a positive development that you're recognized that to equate government nonaction with endorsement is an argument that has no validity, you also need to stop actually using the invalid argument.

[Antoninus]

What does that have to do with anything? This is not a socialist armpit (where the masses own the property); it is a free republic (where the property is privately owned).

So you think our Constitution guarantees the fundamental right of a sleaze-merchant to operate a strip club in a town that votes overwhelmingly to prohibit it? If that's your belief, please state it plainly.

[steve-b]

Truth is neither slander nor calumny (by definition). Detraction of someone for failing to keep order in his organization is hardly a sin.

[steve-b]

Perhaps, sufficiently deprived, they would sublimate their sexual energies by wiping Islam from the face of the earth.

Why on earth would they attack people who competely agree with their, and your, view of the matter?

[steve-b]

All sorts of things were legalized during your adult life (as inferred from your statement). Any other "mistakes" to "reverse"?

[steve-b]

Perhaps instead of blaming porn, you busybodies should focus on the real destruction of families - high taxes

The bottom line, as we've discovered from the past five years of GOP control of every elected branch of the federal government, is that rolling back taxes to an acceptable level is just too much like work (especially when it's time to make the corresponding spending cuts, or deal with the damage caused by out-of-control deficits).

It's so much easier to distract the rubes with "issues" like porn, gay marriage, flag burning, et cetera ad nauseam.

[steve-b]

legalization constitutes endorsement

Well, then, I assume you'll be denouncing the President for endorsing the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the Reverend Fred Phelps....

[Protagoras]

Lines have to be drawn somewhere.

I suggest your own home would be the place.

[steve-b]

The right to private property is the rock on which a free republic is founded. If you disapprove of the right to private property, please say so plainly.

[steve-b]

"If nine-judges say something that's false, it's false. If five judges say something that's true, it's true."
Nonsense. The truth is not subject to vote.

Make up your mind. Is the quoted statement "nonsense" (as declared by your first sentence) or is it correct (as declared by your second sentence)?

[steve-b]

So you think our Constitution guarantees the fundamental right of a sleaze-merchant to operate a strip club in a town that votes overwhelmingly to prohibit it?

Obviously, the Constitution does not guarantee a "right" to maintain a business when your potential customers decline to patronize it, any more than it guarantees an audience to your free speech when your potential listeners decline to pay any attention to it.

[Skooz]

And yet it is the accepted wisdom here that it's the liberals who are guided by what they believe rather than the objective facts of reality.

I believe what I believe because of the objective facts of reality. Therefore, I have no visceral, emotional response to ths issue either way. Unlike many others here. And liberals.

[Old Landmarks]

It was not long ago that anyone deserving of the name "conservative" would not have been caught dead defending pornography publicly.

Your statement is right on the mark.

Now there are conservatives (in name only) who talk, act and have the same moral values and legal revisionism as the ACLU and the far left whore mongering hollywood smut peddlers.

[Antoninus]

The right to private property is the rock on which a free republic is founded. If you disapprove of the right to private property, please say so plainly.

Yawn. More double-talk. So the right to private property is sacrosanct and should permit people to do whatever they want as long as it's on their own property? Should I have the right to operate a brothel out of my house? What if my house was a twin attached to yours? Would that be OK with you?

You believe that the federal government should come into a local community and force them to accept all kinds of vice which they have agreed, among themselves, that they do not want in their community.

And you claim that social conservatives are the "authoritarians"? Give me a break.