Let the Battle for Purity Begin

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.

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