Washington D.C., Jun 14, 2017 / 02:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Online pornography is one of the fastest growing addictions in the United States, on par with cocaine and gambling.
Once confined to the pages of a smuggled Playboy magazine, pornography can now be in the hands of anyone with a smartphone, and is more prolific and anonymous than ever.
PornHub, one of the world’s largest sites with porn video streaming, reports that it averages 75 million viewers per day, or about 2.4 million visitors per hour. In 2015 alone, the number of hours streamed from the site was double the amount of time human beings have populated the Earth, according to TIME Magazine.
And while pornography used to be a simpler problem for priests to address in the confessional – consecrate yourself to Mary, go to weekly adoration – the growing level of addiction makes it a much more complex problem for the Church to address.
That’s why Fr. Sean Kilcawley, the program directory and theological advisor for pornography ministry Integrity Restored, has started to put on intensive trainings for clergy, providing them resources and practical tips for how to address the growing crisis of pornography addiction.
How the trainings work
For an intensive training, Fr. Kilcawley takes a dozen or so priests for 3-4 days and immerses them in resources and training for the porn-addicted in their fold. He also facilitates shorter, one-day conferences.
“We try to equip the priest to get that person to come talk to them outside of confession, just to bring that into the light, so that the priest can then become the first responder in the field hospital of the church,” Fr. Kilcawley told CNA.
Smaller groups work best, he added, because it allows the priests space to process the information and to be more vulnerable with one another.
During these trainings, Fr. Kilcawley tackles the subject from an anthropological and theological standpoint, while Dr. Todd Bowman, a Christian psychologist and director of the SATP Institute, addresses the issue from a psychological viewpoint.
Modeling the relationship between a priest and a sex therapist during the trainings is key, Dr. Bowman said.
“I know that sounds like the start of a joke: a priest and a psychologist walk into a conference,” Dr. Bowman told CNA.
“But (it’s important) to demonstrate this relationship between soul care and care of the psyche or the mind, this process of healing often requires psychological care,” he said.
“So we’re trying to give priests the experience that not all psychologists are anti-church, or anti-Catholic. At the same time, not all Christian or Catholic therapists are equipped and qualified for this, so we’re trying to…(show them how to be) intentional in selecting therapists who will honor church teaching but who will also have the competence to do this work well with porn or sex addiction.”
Preventative action: Stopping porn addictions before they start
Practical things priests can do to address pornography addiction generally fall into two categories: preventative and interventional, Fr. Kilcawley noted.
One of the key things a priest can do to stop pornography addictions is to ensure that the parents of the parish are being provided with education and resources they need for pornography prevention in the home.
“We’ve always said that it’s the parent’s job to educate their children, but as a Church we haven’t done a great job teaching the parents how to educate their children,” Fr. Kilcawley said.
“And we now live in a world where it’s no longer optional to have those conversations.”
No longer optional, because studies show the average age of first exposure to pornography is 8 years old – and any kid with access to a phone or a tablet could accidentally stumble upon pornography, he said.
One thing he recommends is that parishes hold mandatory meetings for parents of children who are either receiving the sacraments or religious education at the parish, where they can give parents an overview of Theology of the Body, as well as tips and resources for internet safety and how to address pornography.
It can be especially difficult to know how to talk about such a mature topic with such a young age group. However, several books have been written in the past several years to help parents know where to begin, Fr. Kilcawley said, and some parishes hand them out during meetings with parents.
One of his recommendations is “Good Pictures Bad Pictures,” a read-aloud picture book that helps parents address the issue with very young children.
Starting at the 4th grade level, Fr. Kilcawley recommends the book “Wonderfully Made! Babies” which puts the content within the context of theology of the body and the sacrament of marriage.
For the junior high and high school level, he recommends “Plunging Pornography,” a book to leave in the bathroom for teens to find that can serve as a conversation starter.
Fr. Kilcawley said in some parishes, groups like the Knights of Columbus have paid for some of these books to be handed out to every parent.
He also recommends internet filters like Covenant Eyes, which sponsors a special service for parents, parishes and schools.
Interventional: What to do about those who are already addicted
Probably the most common place a priest will first find out about a pornography addiction is in the confessional.
When someone confesses viewing porn, Fr. Kilcawley said one of the best things a priest can do is to ask a few guiding questions to help them make a good confession.
“Ask questions like, ‘How frequently do you fall into porn and masturbation in general?’” Fr. Kilcawley said. The question is not meant to pry – it helps determine whether the person needs additional help.
It’s also helpful to ask when the problem started.
“If it started before puberty, which is most common now, almost everyone who started before puberty is going to need extra help stopping, they might need counseling or group support, and spiritual direction,” Father said.
A third question to ask would be if they’ve tried to remove porn from their life – are they already using filtering software? Are they seeing a therapist or going to a 12-step group?
And then finally, Fr. Kilcawley advised priests in the confessional, ask them if they want to stop.
“Just to help them make a good firm purpose of amendment,” he said, adding that when they answer yes, that’s a good opportunity to offer them more resources.
But it’s important that the help be personal. Simply handing the person a flyer and telling them to call a therapist or a group typically doesn’t work, Father noted. It should either be the priest, or someone involved in that specific ministry at the parish, who is the first point of contact for that person, and can help them get in touch with additional resources.
Another thing priests can do is start a porn or sex addict support group in their parish. Fr. Kilcawley said he started one in his office once a week, with a small group of men who were all struggling with porn addictions.
“Most people who are stuck in addiction, they need a support group, whether it’s a 12-step group like Sexaholics Anonymous or a spiritual support group, where they are open and vulnerable and accountable about their lives. They need that, plus a counselor, plus a spiritual director that they’re working with regularly,” he said.
Thou shalt not: The don’ts of porn ministry
A mistake often made by untrained clergy in pornography addiction ministry is that they may suggest, explicitly or implicitly, that a pornography addiction is the fault of the spouse.
“It’s not the spouse’s lack of sexual interest that’s to blame for her husband’s sexual addiction,” Dr. Bowman said. Addicted persons will often try “blame shifting,” he added, which creates “a spiritual crisis that compounds the betrayal trauma” of the spouse.
The next mistake clergy could make would be to minimize the impact of the addiction on the spouse. Most people who find out their spouse has a sex addiction will experience varying levels of feelings of betrayal, Dr. Bowman said.
“There’s significant trauma in that loss of identity – but the Church can speak about identity as sons and daughters of God into that space,” he added. It’s when identity is only being informed by brokenness that bigger problems arise.
Another mistake would be to abandon those in recovery. If a priest commits to setting up support groups in his parish, he needs to follow through, Dr. Bowman said.
“If you are setting yourself up as a support that means take the phone call, schedule the meeting, even if it’s inconvenient, you’re going that measure and not abandoning folks in recovery,” he said.
Not a fringe ministry – this is evangelization 101
The biggest cardinal mistake that clergy can make in regards to pornography addiction ministry is never mentioning it, Dr. Bowman said.
It’s usually a more “omissive than commissive” problem, he commented. “It’s not like (clergy) are actively avoiding talking about this, but they may think, ‘My parishioners don’t want to hear about this, there are other things that are more relevant and important.’
But, according to Dr. Bowman, “There may be no more pressing topic for parishioners and priests alike…the only mistake would be not to bring it up.”
It may be helpful for priests to view this as part of evangelization, and not as a fringe ministry, Fr. Kilcawley said, because very likely, someone who is stuck in addiction is unable to have a good relationship with the Lord.
“Most people who are stuck in addiction believe they’re unlovable, and that if people really knew them they would reject them, and they don’t trust other people to meet their needs and so they have to meet their own needs, and their addiction is the best way to meet their need,” he said. “So if someone has those core beliefs, they can’t really know our Lord.”
“So anti-pornography work and anti-porn apostolates, they’re really the first stage of evangelization.”
Both Dr. Bowman and Fr. Kilcawley said they hope that increasingly, priests become aware of the urgent need to reach pornography addicts in their pews.
“We live in a culture where statistically, about half of Christians report looking at porn at least monthly,” Fr. Kilcawley said.
“So if that’s the case then, yeah we need a lot more (pornography ministry). It’s not a ministry for a few people, it’s more of a ministry for everyone.”
[…]
The Catholic Thing, Dec, 9 – If one is right, the other is wrong.
Former Catholic doing what she does best: using her elected office in government to destroy all that the Catholic Church believes and teaches. I suspect that Nancy studied at the feet of William Tecumseh Sherman. Good work, Nancy.
Sherman did not destroy all that the Catholic Church believes and teaches. Sadly, although he was baptized and raised by an adoptive family that was strongly Catholic, after some years he did not practice the Faith and disagreed with the Church. But his wife was extremely devout and active and the children were all sent to Catholic schools. One of his sons became a priest, though that caused Sherman some bitterness, bit he never sought to destroy the Church’s beliefs or teachings.
Kindly don’t insult him by comparing Pelosi to him.
Yes. He was instrumental in defeating the Confederacy and ending the Civil War after all. That’s kind of a big deal. His biographies are interesting reading.
What I always find interesting is the contemporary southerner women shrieking, “He’s a beast and a monster!” and yet you see story after story about how they mouthed off to him, and lived to tell the tale. Some monster.
Yes, I agree about his biographies. They are very interesting.
There is a charming story about his meeting 4-year-old Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah at the end of the war; her father was a captain in the Confederate army, and her mother’s brothers were serving in the US Army. Sherman was a friend of one of them and went to see Mrs. Gordon to give her messages from her family. Juliette and her sister had been curious about seeing “Old Sherman” in the march through Savannah the previous day, and their mother told Sherman so, while the little girls each protested that it was the other who had called him that. Sherman laughed, and then talked to and entertained the little girls for hours.
And before the war Sherman was in charge of what later became Louisiana State University. In one battle one of his former staff members was captured, and Sherman introduced him to someone as “This is (whatever the name was); he thinks he’s a Confederate officer but he’s really my professor of ancient languages.”
General Sherman may not have destroyed all things Catholic but he sure left a path of misery and destruction behind him.
I think his son who became a Catholic priest is buried in Grand Coteau, Louisiana next to a close relative of the Confederate Vice President.
We read: “Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, called the act a ‘historic step forward in Democrats’ fight to defend the dignity and equality of every American.’”
Nice touch, that. This “historic” step in the most recent microseconds of human history! For talking heads, the notion now that some states can impose their rites (vs “rights”?) on other states, and even on the real rights of individual citizens (“equality of every American”) of other states? Constitution, what Constitution?
Wondering here if Her Majesty has witlessly teed up the ball (so to speak) for the inevitable Constitutional court case? Recalling not only Justice Thomas, but also Chief Justice Roberts in his earlier dissent to Obergefell v Hodges (2015): “Do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”
We might as well notice, too, whether the issue is no longer fenced-in to the redefinition of “marriage”? (And, such an insult to all members of the human race by insinuating an equivalence to interracial marriage!)
So. . .Is the real issue now about the redefinition of the nation-state, itself? The “state” now mutated into a lapdog in the Pavlovian hands of an unnatural mindset in all of its slippery-slope mutations? Does the redefined state now exist simply to salivate over and ratify a full range of possible redefinitions (“fatwas”?): gay marriage, but also polygamy, and then polyamorous block parties, and eventually even beastiality?
Pelosi’s open-ended redefinition of marriage, butt now especially the “state”: the tail wagging the dog?
It’s a very sad state of affairs where this has gone and of course Biden will sign since he’s a Catholic in name only, like Pelosi. But don’t worry, God is not mocked and what’s coming to America will show that you do not mess with God and His commandments !
I’m sure Biden will not sign since he is a devout Catholic….it would go against everything he has been taught since his youth and am sure he sought the advice and counsel of the Pope.
At the very least, Biden is at this moment consulting with his bishop (Washington or Wilmington????) about what a FAITHFUL Catholic ought to do. I’m certain that his episcopal advisor will show him the moral high road to take. We are all in good hands when we first consult our bishops when faced with weighty moral issues.
My Eposicial adviser is from Germany!
Didn’t his mother threaten/tell off a nun because of something that happened at his school, or do I have that story mixed up?
He always talked about taking Trump out behind the school gymnasium.
Opening a pandora’s box.
Pelosi conflated this bill with the decision in Dobbs, as if the two were related. Oh, wait, they are related. Both cases promote immorality. Once again, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger comes to mind. Later voted Pope Benedict XVI, he stated, “Truth is not determined by a majority vote.” No matter how many people think something is right, it doesn’t make it so.
Maybe someone in her family will utilize, possibly……………………
If the hierarchy had gone all-in on the promotion of NFP, especially in their hospitals systems, then they might not be where they find themselves.
Is NFP conscious, deliberate birth control? Just asking.
It depends on how you define “birth control.” NFP is not contraception, unless you want to consider abstaining from sex contraception.
.
Observing a women’s fertility signs and then making a decision about whether to engage in, or not engage in, procreative activity does not offend the Church’s (God’s) prohibition on contraception
NFP is not contraception.
Marriage is the union of a man and a woman – yesterday today tomorrow – forever, and the nonsense which the ‘catholics’ and their pals in the house and senate insist in indulging in will NOT change that.
The ‘respect for marriage act’ – what a mockery.
“Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who would kill the body for they cannot kill the soul. Instead fear Him who is able to destroy both the soul and body in Hell.” The fact that Americans no longer fear the Lord will lead to the destruction of this nation from within and without in one years time.
Some years ago as Vice President Biden performed a gay”wedding” ceremony – with scarcely any response by the bishops. For decades, politicians have trumpeted their Catholic identity while vigorously promoting abortion and same sex marriage. Few have faced any consequences from the Church. They continue to receive Communion and are virtually immune to any correction from the Church. The Archbishop of Washington is notably reluctant to uphold Church teaching in these areas.
And when Pelosi, Biden, et. al. die,they can expect an elaborate Catholic funeral as Ted Kennedy, Mario Cuomo, etc. received.
I cannot help wondering if our bishops simply prefer peace, unity (and perhaps popularity) to the truth. Or, do they not believe the teaching of the Church themselves?
Looking everyday that the “Catholic Church” may not be the true church it claims to be. A modern day synagogue of satan as Jesus would say.
If the Catholic Bishops would only become politically vocal on the moral issues of the day instead of cowardly shying from the public square this country could be turned around in short order. I blame the Catholic Bishops, not Catholic politicians ignorant of the Faith, for the passage of this same sex marriage bill.
Half the annual budget of the USCCB comes from the Feds. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
Honestly, if the Church lost her 5013c tax status and lost her ability to get federal funds, that might be one of the best things to happen to her
Does the ‘Respect for Marriage’ law say as to whether or not it is going to ‘discriminate’ against man-boy-lovers, marriage to animals, or marriage to inanimate objects?
I can clearly see the legal problems with the ‘Respect for marriage’ law. Let us take a look at the pregnant 41 year old school teacher having sex with her 15 year old student. Even in jail for doing so, she now would have a right to marry her 15 year old lover, “to put the family back together”. The ‘wolf in sheeps clothing’ Progressive, Liberal, Socialist, Marxist Democrats next step is to help her fight ‘unconstitutional’, ‘age discrimination’, Federal laws which stand in the way of her ‘right’ to marry the one she loves.
After the school teacher wins her battle for her “rights”, it will be 50 year old male man-boy-lovers wanting to marry their 5 year old lovers.
https://youtu.be/ZnKB9NzgD4k
Florida teacher charged with having sex with student, 15, is now pregnant
https://nypost.com/2021/10/11/florida-teacher-pregnant-after-being-arrested-for-having-sex-with-student/
What ever happened to the sanctity of the sacrament of Matrimony?
Agreed. If the Catholic Bishops cannot be vocal on moral issues, what really is their purpose?
All these silly little people will someday be called to account, and they will have much to answer for.
The Church is the moral compass for Catholics—not the Federal government. The Church defines marriage for Catholics—-not the Federal government. Whatever happens in Washington DC never changes the teachings of the Church. Church leaders do not make policy in the Federal government and politicians do not make policy for the Church. Anyone who thinks the Church and the Federal government are equals are creating a golden calf. Catholics only pledge allegiance to God and nobody else. The Federal government should be ignored because it never dictates how Catholics are to live their lives.
People listen to the government because they keep writing out checks.
Government money is certainly a large part of this. That and human respect.
What will matter in the end is the question as to whether or not our church leaders have a spine. Or will they all simply cave in, in a heap as they did when it was demanded they close our churches for covid? ( Note: I am almost 70, have experienced covid twice. Clearly, I am not dead!) My point being, the feds can pass any law they want, fine you however much they want. In the end, they cannot FORCE you to do anything against your will. Unless you fear their penalties more than God. Pick your side. The disgusting and poisonous DEMs, or God. It really is that simple. If we lose our tax status, so what? A smaller church might be a better, more devout one. Close the catholic hospitals and schools if we must and see how easily the govt fills in the gap. If they can. What to do if we are sued in an effort to force the hiring of sexually inappropriate folks to become Catholic school teachers and church employees?? Say no. If indeed they shut us down, what can be done? Well, I think if I write a weekly invitation to my priest to celebrate Mass in my PRIVATE home ( as in the days of the old church in Rome)I will invite my friends too, and nobody else. What can they do about that? Nothing. End of story. There are ways to accomplish anything. All it takes is a spine and a will, and willingness to stand up for what you believe no matter WHAT the talking pin-heads are saying.
Amen, LJ!
I wish our bishops had the spirit, the faith and the love of our Lord Jesus that you do!
I don’t mean to be “digging at” the Holy Father. The Holy Father did say to legalize homosexual “civil union” and he has not retracted it. He hasn’t even said if the video of that, that was released, was made public with or without his permission or if it is a fraud in some manner.
What is to be made of it?
Man does not have power to legalize unnaturalness and abominations and the Pope has neither the power as Pope nor mandate for any such thing.
“Minutes before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, called the act a ‘historic step forward in Democrats’ fight to defend the dignity and equality of every American.'”
Nancy Pelosi isn’t a Catholic. She is a heretic.
“DOMA, which the bill would repeal, is a 1996 law signed by President Bill Clinton that defined marriage federally as the union of a man and a woman, reserved federal benefits to heterosexual couples, and permitted states not to recognize same-sex marriages contracted in other states. DOMA was already effectively nullified by the 2013 and 2015 Supreme Court decisions United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states.”
The government (including the courts) has no power or authority to redefine marriage. Marriage is a matter of nature and was defined and instituted by God and is regulated by God and His Church – i.e. the Catholic Church.
To be validly married not only words, but also consummation is necessary. This is a matter of divine and natural law. It should be obvious that consummation is only possible between a physically mature male and female.
As far as I can tell, government is becoming more evil as time goes on. The rot is very deep and much of it appears to be very well hidden (e.g. not publicized) – and it is not confined to the federal government.
The Democrats – and some Republicans – have blood on their hands. They will be held accountable before God.
As Catholics ought to know, those guilty of unrepented mortal sin will go to Hell.
“Nancy Pelosi isn’t a Catholic. She is a heretic.”
She is a baptized Catholic. By all indications, she’s a very bad Catholic who holds to heretical views about life, sexuality, the human person, etc.