[In response to parents' request that I notify them when adult matter is the bulletin article's subject, I am asking them to read this essay before deciding to share it with their children.]

This weekend, in many Protestant churches, the congregations are observing what must sound very strange--Pornography Sunday.  During the priests' retreat last week, the priest psychologist who gave it spent some time on this issue in answer to priests' queries about how to help persons struggling with addiction to pornography.  And, finally, a book has been published by Pamela Paul entitled Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships & Our Families; from reviews, I understand it is worthwhile and I intend to buy a copy.  What is all this about?

As even the most cursory examination of pornography, especially on the internet, will reveal, Americans spend billions of dollars each year on this product.  Whereas before, if one wished to purchase a pornographic magazine or video, a visit to an adult bookstore was required.  Now pornography comes to you--on your computer as well as the television at home or in your hotel room.  Advertising, to name just one staple of American life, often verges on the pornographic.

Even before reading Paul's book, I can tell you this widespread availability of porn has had a huge affect on people's lives.  Many of us have heard of someone losing a job because he was caught watching porn on his computer at work.  I know more than one marriage which came to an end when a wife discovered her husband's hidden porn supply or the places he had visited on the computer.  There are many, many children in junior high [and younger] who are getting their attitudes towards sexuality from adult sites--often at home.  You will recall my begging parents to insure that computers at home are placed wherever anyone can see them at any time--yes, even your 'good' kid's computer.

I can recall an attorney who had taken a seminar on this issue telling me of the effect that watching pornography has on the brain.  If watching becomes addictive, some authorities believe it is easier to give up cocaine than porn.  In Patrick Carne's groundbreaking  investigation of sexual addiction and healing, he tells us that one can be fairly sure he or she is heading towards addiction when money and hours are devoted to pornography and its viewing is having an affect on our 'real' relationships.  On Carnes' website he has a test which can help determine where one is vis a vis sexual addiction.

When one is dealing with an addiction, often a phrase or word is helpful in breaking the cycle.  AA has wonderful phrases which the person wanting to take the first drink says to counteract the obsession, i.e. HALT--'Don't get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired' or 'Easy Does It.'  Fr. Carey, our retreat master, defined sin as treating another person as an thing.  In facing the temptation to view the naked bodies of other human beings, these sons and daughters of mothers who love them, he suggests saying the word Respect as a single-word reminder that all persons deserve this, that their bodies are not to become the objects of our lust.  Another suggestion is putting a photo of ones spouse and children on the computer as a call to be indeed the person they think you are.  For others the best recourse may be the growing number of groups which provide help familiar to those who have benefited from the 12 Step Program; a phone number for Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous is in the phone book.  There are also Catholic and other Christian websites for those who wish to seek help online.

As I mentioned last Sunday at Mass, I am reading Dante's Divine Comedy; right now I am on the 5th Circle of Hell.  But the 2nd Circle is the eternal home of the lustful; since each circle's punishment resembles the sin, it made sense for Dante to portray the lustful as driven around and around by fierce winds as in life they had allowed their passions to drive them on.  Persons unfamiliar with sexual addiction may imagine its victims enjoying hours and hours of sensual pleasure and excitement.  Certainly the wealthy purveyors of porn do not want you to see the lack of freedom, shame, wasted hours and money, failed relationships with loved ones, compulsion to lie and hide, deep unease in the presence of God, hopelessness.

This issue is not the problem of a few prudes' suspecting someone somewhere is having fun.  Pornography, especially on the internet, is an epidemic in the United States, affecting the lives of countless people and, as the title of book mentioned above says, their relationships and families.  You will hear one of this Sunday's Prayers of the Faithful addressing this addiction: if this is your struggle, may you know that you are not alone and that there is hope and mercy for you...as well as many ways to return to freedom and self respect.