LET THE BATTLE FOR PURITY BEGIN: LOVE VS. PORNOGRAPHY
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by Paul S. Loverde
Each year on March 19, Catholics throughout the world interrupt the
austerities of Lent to celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, patron of
fathers and of the universal Church. Coming as I do from a Sicilian family,
this feast has always carried a special significance. My father was not
unlike St. Joseph insofar as he sacrificed mightily for his family. A man of
deep and quiet faith, he showed me what it means to be a man.
My father could not have imagined the challenges involved in protecting a
family from today’s relentless assault of pornographic material. It has
truly become mainstream, nearly impossible to avoid even by the most
cautious. This pornographic culture stems from, and feeds back into, an
extremely distorted view of human sexuality. We are deeply confused about
things my father’s generation would have taken entirely for granted, and the
results of that confusion are everywhere evident.
When I was ordained a priest in 1965, two in ten marriages ended in divorce;
that rate has more than doubled. Abortion then was illegal; today over a
million babies are aborted annually in this country alone. Back then fewer
than 300,000 Americans were incarcerated; now one in thirty-one adult
Americans is in prison or on probation.
As a young priest in the 1970s, I served for a decade in campus ministry
settings. In those years, the first fruits of the sexual revolution were
already apparent. Pope Francis’s image of the Church as a “field hospital”
in the midst of such wreckage would describe it well.
Today’s “field hospital” must aggressively treat the vicious cancer of
pornography, which lies at the heart of our societal ills. “Unchastity,”
wrote Joseph Pieper in The Four Cardinal Virtues, “begets a blindness of
spirit which practically excludes all understanding of the goods of the
spirit; unchastity splits the power of decision.” Over the years I have
witnessed the nature and effects of pornography’s splitting powers in our
families and communities.
Nearly eight years ago I wrote a pastoral letter on the subject, Bought with
a Price, a new edition of which is being released today. The pornography
epidemic is something to which all people of good will must devote more
attention and talk about more openly, but first we need to understand
something of the scope and character of the problem.
Those who deny that the act of viewing pornography has any negative
consequences must understand just how toxic the situation has become. It may
be that a man now in his forties, say, remembers being a curious adolescent,
stealing glances at a magazine in a neighbor’s home or in the aisle of a
convenience store. As morally problematic and harmful as that act surely is,
such behavior was arguably slow to become habitual and the physiological and
psychological consequences were infrequently severe. That experience is far
removed from what young people face today.
The most graphic forms of pornography are now easily and anonymously
accessible on the internet and on any smartphone. Many among us are now
caught in patterns of addiction that rival those of drugs and alcohol in
their grip on the individual, if not in the disruption that results in their
lives. Depression, anxiety, isolation, marital strife, and job loss can all
be intensified for those caught in the web of this addiction.
More subtly, though, current research underscores what we are hearing in the
classrooms, counseling sessions, and in the confessional: This addiction is
not merely behavioral, a bad habit that can be broken like any other.
Chronic viewing of pornographic material impacts one’s brain chemistry in a
manner that can “hook” a person and lead to a quest for increasingly lurid
forms of pornography. Over time, more and more is needed to produce the same
effect. The brains of habitual users of pornography are strikingly similar
to those of alcoholics, and the part of the brain involved in moral and
ethical decision-making is weakened by viewing pornography. Once brain
chemistry is remapped, it becomes very difficult for one to “reset” to a
sense of normality in the future. Any man can tell you that these images are
often very hard to forget.
While the suffering experienced by the addict cannot be overstated, we must
recognize that there is also social harm. As a pastor, I have seen how
damaging this shift continues to be in family life, courtship, and marriage
preparation. One of my great concerns is the impact this plague is having on
children. What is their future if their parents’ marriage is destroyed by
this type of infidelity, or if they themselves are exposed to such toxic
material long before they are able to experience the joy of true love and
romance? Even the smallest child today often has easy access to a parent’s
or sibling’s smartphone and is surrounded by screens.
When my pastoral letter on pornography was first issued, a high school
student in my diocese wrote that “if a person knew that after viewing
pornography he would be a bad example for his kids, would objectify his
spouse and friends, and lastly destroy his relationship and vision of God,
he would not do it.”
Just as some drugs are described as “gateways” to more serious substance
abuse, a young person who experiences lust disconnected from an actual human
person is at tremendous risk for failing ever to understand the beauty of
God’s gift of human sexuality. Is not the so-called “hook-up” culture
evidence of this? In addition, while it is certainly not the outcome for all
who become involved with pornography, might it not be reasonable to posit
that the dramatic rise in human sex trafficking is partly fueled by a
pornographic culture?
And yet, despite all this, there is hope. Both scientists and believers are
sounding the alarm. We know much more about the physiological aspects of
this addiction and how best to reverse them. Behavioral change is possible,
though this is not simply a question of behavior.
This is not a problem a person can solve on their own. Alongside the central
commitment to prayer, the communal element of the recovery process needs to
be given special emphasis. Very often, a key factor in one’s descent into
pornography addiction is a lack of affirmation, acceptance, and trust in
one’s relationships. An important part of the ascent, then, can also be the
sharing of this struggle with others, allowing their love and concern to aid
in the healing. As Pope Francis has said, “No one is saved alone, as an
isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of
relationships that take place in the human community.”
Pornography thrives in the shadowy silence of isolation, but the warm light
of love and friendship can do much to help cast it out. Women certainly have
a critical role in this fight and should take a stance of absolute
intolerance toward pornography, but in a particular way men need to be
recalled to their God-given role as protectors of their families and of
society if we are to overcome it.
A man in one of my parishes told me that Bought with a Price woke him up to
the many ways in which his pornography use affected him as a father and
husband. “I now understand,” he wrote, “that the true character of a man is
shown in how he acts when nobody is watching.”
That is a lesson that St. Joseph, whom we honor today, knew well. Let the
battle for purity begin.
Paul S. Loverde is bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. A
new edition of his pastoral letter on pornography, Bought with a Price, is
available at Amazon for Kindle and at www.arlingtondiocese.org/purity.