Posted on 11/19/2011 5:02:31 AM PST by IbJensen
Note: This article originally appeared in Columbia magazine, the magazine of the Knights of Columbus, and is reprinted here with permission
November 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a conversation with a priest in my diocese, I shared my spiritual director’s report that every other confession he hears from men involves the sin of pornography. The pastor’s response was shocking: “Oh, it’s much worse than that!” Since then, this sad reality has been confirmed by many others: The sin of pornography is overwhelming Catholic men.
Pornography is now more popular than baseball. In fact, it has become America’s pastime, and we are awash in it. Porn is on our computers, our smartphones, and our cable or satellite TV. It’s common in our hotels and even in many retail stores and gas stations. For many men — and, increasingly, women — it is part of their daily lives.
Yet, Catholic teaching on the subject is clear. Use of pornography is a “grave offense.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Pornography … offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others” (2354).
In Life of Christ, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote, “The penalty of those who live too close to the flesh is to never understand the spiritual.” Hardcore pornography on the Internet offers an ocean of perversion. It takes the mind where it should never go, loosening its moral moorings and leaving it adrift in a treacherous sea of sin. That is the fate of those who give themselves over to pornography: They find themselves alone with their images and an insatiable appetite for more.
While astounding to many, users of pornography eventually put religion, marriage, family, work and friendships secondary to their desire for pornography. They may want to change, to go back to life as it was before porn, but most will return and descend further. Dr. Mary Anne Layden, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the Center for Cognitive Therapy, likens pornography to crack cocaine. In a testimony to the U.S. Senate in November 2004, she noted, “This material is potent, addictive and permanently implanted in the brain.”
Sadly, for the regular consumer of pornography, confession and contrition are normally not sufficient to break from pornography because, like drug abuse, pornography is not just a bad habit — it is often an addiction.
A DESIRE THAT DOES NOT SATISFY
Addiction to pornography is now commonplace among adults and is even a growing problem for children and teenagers. Few who are addicted will get help, and the consequences can be lifelong and severe.
Pornography’s addictive strength is a result of long-term, sometimes lifelong, neuroplastic changes in the brain. Psychiatrist Norman Doidge, author of the best-selling book The Brain That Changes Itself (Penguin, 2007), writes, “Pornography, by offering an endless harem of sexual objects, hyperactivates the appetitive system. Porn viewers develop new maps in their brains, based on the photos and videos they see. Because it is a use-it-or-lose-it brain, when we develop a map area, we long to keep it activated. Just as our muscles become impatient for exercise if we’ve been sitting all day, so too do our senses hunger to be stimulated” (108).
With pornography, in other words, our brain’s pleasure system that excites our desires is activated, but there is no real satisfaction. This explains why users can spend endless hours searching for pornography on the Internet.
Doidge further notes that porn viewers develop tolerances so that they need higher and higher levels of stimulation. Thus, they often move to harder, more deviant pornography. More than a decade ago, Margaret A. Healy, adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law, and Muireann O’Brian, former head of End Child Pornography, Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT), observed a link between adult and child pornography. Since that time, scores of current and former law enforcement authorities have noted that many adult porn consumers will eventually move to child pornography, even if they are not pedophiles and had no interest is such material at first. These findings account, in part, for the prevalence of child pornography in the world today.
Viewing porn changes the user’s attitude toward sex, his or her spouse and society. He or she uses sexual fantasies to get aroused, tries to get partners to act out pornographic scenes, is more likely to engage in sexual harassment and sexual aggression, and views sex as a casual, non-intimate, recreational privilege. Laydon and other clinical psychologists have reported that, ironically, erectile dysfunction is commonly associated with constant porn use among men. One reason for this is that the constant search for sexual images and often-accompanying masturbation lead to dissatisfaction with one’s spouse. After all, a man’s wife cannot possibly maintain an image that competes with the women in the fantasy world of pornographic videos and images. The regular porn consumer sets himself up for disappointment and the almost-certain disintegration of his marriage.
Marital love is meant to be a total giving of oneself to a lifelong, faithful partner. It is a trusting, selfless giving. By contrast, pornographic sex is selfish, demeaning and mechanical. In his catechesis on the theology of the body, Pope John Paul II emphasized that there is a “moral goodness” in marriage, which is faithfulness. That goodness can be adequately achieved only in the exclusive relationship of both parties. Too many people miss out on that unique goodness of marriage and settle for the temporary, perverted and unfulfilling excitement of pornography.
PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN
A father has a duty to keep his children from pornography and a sacred obligation to set an example of purity for his family. What greater authority could a father have about the harms of pornography than the words of Christ?: “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28).
If you have become a porn consumer, ask yourself this: Am I the same man who professed fidelity to my wife on my wedding day? Fidelity cannot be maintained if one consumes pornography. Wives of porn consumers feel as though their husbands are committing adultery. Affairs of the mind are every bit as destructive as affairs of the heart.
Divorce lawyers report a high correspondence between pornography consumption and divorces. One 2004 study in Social Science Quarterly titled “Adult Social Bonds and Use of Internet Pornography” revealed that persons having an extramarital affair were more than three times more likely to have accessed Internet porn than those who did not have affairs. Further, those ever having engaged in paid sex were 3.7 times more apt to be using Internet porn than those who had not.
If you have a porn habit, your children may follow. Many pornography addicts report that their first exposure to porn was the discovery of their parent’s porn collection, which started them on a life of sexual confusion and exploitation. A 2006 survey of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children revealed that 79 percent of youth gain unwanted exposure to pornography in the home.
To a child, pornography normalizes sexual harm, according to Dr. Sharon Cooper, a pediatrician at the University of North Carolina. “Research has shown that the prefrontal cortex — the home of good judgment, common sense, impulse control and emotions — is not completely mature until children are 20-22 years of age,” she explained. The introduction of pornography to the brain’s prefrontal cortex is therefore devastating to key areas of a child’s development and may be life-altering. “When a child sees adult pornography … their brains will convince them that they are actually experiencing what they are seeing,” Cooper added. In other words, what a child sees in porn is what they believe is reality.
Some children will actually emulate what they see in pornography and experiment on siblings, relatives and friends. Many studies show that children exposed to pornography initiate sexual activity at an earlier age, have more sex partners, and have multiple partners in a short period of time. A 2001 study in the journal Pediatrics also found that teenage girls exposed to pornographic movies have sex more frequently and have a strong desire to become pregnant.
THERE IS HELP AND HOPE
Thankfully, there are organizations, counselors and resources that provide hope for those suffering from the destructive effects of pornography on children, marriages, relationships and society. Many who have been addicted — adults and children alike — have been helped through counseling or online exercises offered by recovery services.
It is critical, however, that each person and each family does a reality check. Ask yourselves whether you and your family are protected from the scourge of pornography. Do you have adequate parental control or filtering software on your home computer? Is the computer in an open area of the home? If you have children, have you talked to them about the spiritual and social cost of pornography? Do you have premium cable or satellite channels on your TV that offer pornography as regular fare?
If you are viewing pornography or indecent material, you are harming your very soul and perhaps those of your children and your spouse. The biblical warning is severe: “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out” (Mk 9:47). At a minimum, make sure that your computer both at home and in the office is filtered and that you have an “accountability partner” — perhaps your wife or a good friend — who has access to your computer and the sites you visit. Finally, get involved in the war on pornography. It is worth the fight for you, your family and your nation.
Now you’re getting silly, and I am about to laugh my protestant head off.
The bulk of the reported molestation problems within Catholic cloisters are from queers, homosexuals. They would not give a hoot about whether the church would want them to marry, and loosening the policy wouldn’t drive them out. Priesthood isn’t a lifetime vow and they can quit to marry, and also the Catholic church accepts already-married converts into the priesthood (as from the Episcopal church).
“The Catholic Church would be better served tending to their own sins, rather than caring about pornography.”
If the church is so anti-pornography then why do they even have a pornograph?
I think this topic would be of interest to you, however there is one poster trying hard to turn this into a Catholic bashing thread.
You wrote:
“What the Church should do is allow their priests to marry.”
None of the historic churches ever had priests who married. The Church literally cannot change that. One day the Church may ordain married men regularly, but it will NEVER have priests who marry. There’s a huge difference.
“This would go a long way to solving a lot of their problems.”
Sandusky was married. Did it solve his problem?
“Basing your rules on something that goes against biology makes zero sense.”
All of Christianity in a sense “goes against biology” for we depend on grace and not the flesh in general. Christ becoming man goes “goes against biology” as we know it. Many scientists will tell you monogamy “goes against biology”.
“They did it to save money in claims against them.”
Did what?
“It is time to abandon the policy. Until that day they are going to attract a lot of priests who have mental issues of some sort. It is unnatural to deny the right to have sex and take a partner.”
They don’t deny it. People choose celibacy. It is imposed on exactly no one.
Read it. If you disagree with me, fine, but asking me whether I have read something is irrelevant to the point, at least in my opinion.
Pornography will be here forever. There is a demand for it, so it will be there. It’s not going away and cannot be legislated away or “spiritualized” away.
Perhaps if those crazed folks in the Middle East had better access to porn and sex, they would be far less angry.
Too much sake, sakic?
It’s your belief that homosexuals would become priests if priests could marry? And you’re laughing at my thought process?
Not Catholic bashing. Bashing of those that run it, not of those that follow its teachings. Big difference.
I’m in the camp that says the bible allows a looser policy — however, I’ve personally watched a person, the pastor of my own church who became celibate against his will when his wife died at an untimely age, and I saw (and continue to see) God use that to advance the quality of his very much evangelical ministry. St. Paul wasn’t woofing when he said that pastoral singlehood had its advantages. If he was woofing, then the Bible is telling lies in that passage.
You’d have to get scissors and cut stuff out of the bible before you could even get the idea that being married is better for all pastors.
You wrote:
“Read it. If you disagree with me, fine, but asking me whether I have read something is irrelevant to the point, at least in my opinion.”
No, actually it is relevant. That’s why I asked the question. Apparently you didn’t read the article: that would explain why you made the mistake you did. You probably don’t know which one you made either.
What in the Bible points to not allowing priests to marry? This is not about religion. It is about money.
As I stated earlier, deeds matter to me. Words and stated policy do not.
Do you disagree with my statement that pornography is not going away?
Do you disagree with my contention that homosexuals would be virtually eliminated from the priesthood if priests could marry?
Do you disagree with my statement that the Church continues to protect child molesters?
None of my statements has been critical of people that follow Catholic teachings. The teachings are fine. Yet, some are trying to turn me into a Catholivc basher because they cannot disagree with my statements.
To be even clearer, the same problems exist in all religions, including the Jewish faith (I’m Jewish), particularly in the Orthodox community.
The difference is that the Catholic Church as an institution exists in a different state than all others because it has a hierarchy unlike the other religions.
I’ve had personal experience through a friend and neighbor that went through hell because of the way the Church treated his son and the priest that molested him, so pardon me if I seem indifferent to whatever it is they say rather than what they do.
You wrote:
“What in the Bible points to not allowing priests to marry?”
What in the Bible points to having to have explicit verses for this?
“This is not about religion. It is about money.”
No, it is not.
The Church is and has done much to prevent any of this kind of evil. What church do you follow? One that is perfect, pure and Godlike? There is no such church but people like you must be perfect, too much so to even belong to any church. How do you know anything about what the Catholic Church is doing to care about porn? Your bias is why the haters in this Country are causing so much damage. Back up, with facts and figures what “they” would be better served doing, you stated that the Church shouldn’t “care” about porn? You are a smug, small minded twit with more mouth than brain.
Fine, why does the Catholic Church not allow priests to marry?
Requiring pastoral singlehood isn’t a uniform policy under all the branches of the church that come under Rome’s historic supervision. There are even exceptions in the main Roman Catholic church, as for Episcopal priests that come in married. You seem to be arguing something along the lines that if Roman Catholics had enough married priest candidates to choose from, then those lousy homosexuals would be robbed of all their room to creep in to the ministry. I say that’s hogwash, and it would be hogwash unless scissors were taken to Paul’s comments about the advantages of pastoral singlehood. And I ain’t about to do that to the Bible, and if you are, then scat!
As opposed to the same unadulterated raw porn found on the myriad FREE sites?
Devil's advocate: so if it's free porn, does it still constitute a sin?
/sarc (you really don't need to answer that)
Sometimes the only pay Satan gets out of it is to snicker at compromised Christians. And sometimes he gets mammon.
You wrote:
“As I stated earlier, deeds matter to me. Words and stated policy do not.”
If words don’t matter to you, then stop typing.
“Do you disagree with my statement that pornography is not going away?”
Irrelevant. Whether it is or isn’t going away is in itself irrelevant as to whether or not it is good or should be opposed.
“Do you disagree with my contention that homosexuals would be virtually eliminated from the priesthood if priests could marry?”
Your contention is meaningless in any case. There is no history - EVER - within Christianity of priests marrying. Married men can be ordained. Ordained men do not marry.
“Do you disagree with my statement that the Church continues to protect child molesters?”
Yes, I disagree because no such thing ever happened in the first place. Some bishops did wrong, others did not. The Church never protected child molestors. Some bishops did.
“None of my statements has been critical of people that follow Catholic teachings. The teachings are fine. Yet, some are trying to turn me into a Catholivc basher because they cannot disagree with my statements.”
No, I think the first problem is that you seem to have little or no idea of what you’re talking about. Priests don’t marry. Period. Thus, saying that that should happen is nonsensical. It can’t. It won’t.
“To be even clearer, the same problems exist in all religions, including the Jewish faith (I’m Jewish), particularly in the Orthodox community.”
So, that shoots your “let them marry and everything will be fine” idea. If other religions have the same problems, then a celibate clergy is not the problem.
“The difference is that the Catholic Church as an institution exists in a different state than all others because it has a hierarchy unlike the other religions.”
False. Orthodox Christians also have hierarchy. Again, you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about. Lutherans and Anglicans also have hierarchies.
“I’ve had personal experience through a friend and neighbor that went through hell because of the way the Church treated his son and the priest that molested him, so pardon me if I seem indifferent to whatever it is they say rather than what they do.”
I’ve had personal experience through Freerepublic with people who seem to have had no idea of what they were talking about, so pardon me if I seem indifferent to whatever it is you say since it’s unconnected to reality.
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