CNA Newsroom, Nov 16, 2022 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
A priest of the Diocese of Münster, Germany, Father Hermann Backhaus, said that consuming pornography “can have a relieving effect” on celibate people. He also considers it a “very strong” statement to associate the devil with pornography, as Pope Francis did at a meeting with seminarians in Rome last month.
Backhaus has been a priest since 2001. He works as a psychologist in an accompaniment center for people in the service of the Catholic Church. At the center he offers support with the aim of “growing in interior freedom” and “recognizing and living the vocation given by God.”
This work, as explained on his website, is offered to full-time pastoral workers, religious, and people preparing for those ministries.
In an interview with Katolisch.de, the news outlet of the Catholic Church in Germany, Backhaus warned against “the somewhat dirty connotation” attributed to the term pornographic.
In his opinion, “there are positive effects of explicit sexuality in relation to the couple” such as “making their love life become more alive.”
In the case of celibate people, the German priest says that “the consumption of explicit sexual representations can have a relieving effect, it can’t be denied.”
But he points out: “Of course, there may be better individual relief in this area than pornography.”
Referring to Pope Francis’ recent statement warning clerics against the consumption of pornography, Backhaus said that “the clergy, religious, and other people at the service of the Church generally have experience with pornography.”
However, he disagrees with the pope regarding his assessment that “the devil enters through there” because of the consumption of pornography.
The German priest takes issue with the pope on this point and affirms that “associating the devil with pornography is a very strong statement.”
He also considers that expressing this demonic connection to pornography is a “spiritual exaggeration.”
Throughout the interview, the priest also says that he works in this field “as a psychologist who is also a priest and not the other way around” and that “as a psychologist I do not judge or condemn the consumption of pornography” since it is something “you have to deal with.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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“Relief for celibates?” What happens when those “celibates” shortly thereafter become addicted to porn (and they will)? And where is the relief for the exploited women (and children perhaps?) acting in the porn?
Remove this guy from having any contact with with his “line of work” in the Catholic Church!
One wonders about Fr. Backhaus possibly counseling porn in the confessional, and if this advice constitutes “solicitation” and merits the canonical penalty of, what, excommunication?
And, who says he’s actually a psychologist? The more credible psychological insight is that addictions are an unhealthy response to a deeper and lacking sense of real belonging. A real psychologist-priest, especially, would be intent on healing the pain, not throwing gasoline of the fire.
Idiot. Maybe he should be laicized where he then could become an advisor to the like-minded German “synodal way.”
The man’s a complete fool!
…the German priest says that ‘the consumption of explicit sexual representations can have a relieving effect, it can’t be denied.’
Choosing pornography rather than grace causes grace — the presence of God in the soul– to depart. The demons now have a place in which to dwell. Has the German priest not read the scripture on the legion of demons leaving the possessed man and entering swine which then commit mass suicide? Is this German priest an apostatic, rationalist, historicist who does not believe that this scripture says what it says? This cannot be denied except by those who choose demonic delusion.
Of greater concern of scandalous behavior is that of Fr Backhaus’ bishop Felix Genn of Munster. By what rationale does a Catholic bishop, Apostolic defender of the faith permit this priest to serve his diocese?
Perhaps the answer lies in Pope Francis’ 2013 removal of Cardinal Joachim Meisner from the Congregation for Bishops replacing Meisner with Genn.
“…the somewhat dirty connotation”
Oh my goodness. It would be hard to make this stuff up. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both I suppose.
What’s the difference between a German Priest and a Jesuit Priest? If you look hard enough you can still find faithful Jesuits.
The late Hugh Hefner approach in his pseudo-intellectual ‘philosophy’ where biology is manifest.