Showing posts with label sexual recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexual recovery. Show all posts

Thursday, August 15, 2019

HEALTH & SEXUAL RECOVERY TO CHASTITY - For a full and unfettered outlook on human life, sexuality, & happiness, for the sake of meaning, purpose, and direction freely given to one's life

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There are facts and truths that "sexual libertarians" don't want society or public opinion to know, that even they don't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To define one's identity on the basis of our sexuality alone is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you. G.S.

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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best human efforts to make sense of our lives - and of our human sexuality in particular - also including the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium. The Church has been accumulating much valuable wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7 
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik

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In each case, please go to the link for the complete article.

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 HEALTH & HUMAN SEXUALITY 

👉 Is Purity Possible? 
By Joseph L. Soria If God forbids something, whether it be killing, lying, stealing, fornicating, or anything else, he does so not just because these things are evil in themselves, but also because they make us evil, lowering our nature to the level of the beasts. In this context it is easy to understand St. Augustine’s exclamation: “What am I to you that you should command me to love you, and if I do not, are angry and threaten vast misery? Is it then a trifling sorrow not to love you?” Therefore the sixth commandment, though formulated negatively, is fully understood only within the context of the love of God — for this is how we are to understand that the prohibitive nature of the commandment actually entails positive dimensions. It makes little sense if we interpret it from an exclusively negative point of view; for indeed it is an invitation to love.

👉 Celibacy and the Priesthood 
Protestant attacks on priestly celibacy come in a number of different forms—not all compatible with one another. There is almost no other subject about which so many different confusions exist. 
The first and most basic confusion is thinking of priestly celibacy as a dogma or doctrine—a central and irreformable part of the faith, believed by Catholics to come from Jesus and the apostles. Thus some Protestants make a great deal of a biblical reference to Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:30), apparently supposing that, if Catholics only knew that Peter had been married, they would be unable to regard him as the first pope. Again, Protestant time lines of “Catholic inventions” assign “mandatory priestly celibacy” to this or that year in Church history, as if prior to this requirement the Church could not have been Catholic. These Protestants are often surprised to learn that even today celibacy is not the rule for all Catholic priests. In fact, for Eastern Rite Catholics, married priests are the norm, just as they are for Orthodox and Oriental Christians.

👉 Why married priests won't really fix the shortage 
By Mary Rezac Denver, Colo., Jun 18, 2017 -     In 1970, there was one priest for every 800 Catholics in the United States. 
Today, that number has more than doubled, with one priest for every 1,800 Catholics. Globally, the situation is worse. The number of Catholics per priest increased from 1,895 in 1980 to 3,126 in 2012, according to a report from CARA at Georgetown University. The Catholic Church in many parts of the world is experiencing what is called a “priest shortage” or a “priest crisis.”

SACRA PROPEDIEM ENCYCLICAL OF POPE BENEDICT XV ON
👉 THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS
TO THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, AND OTHER ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE.
The important role of the Third Order of Saint Francis, The Order of Penance, for the renewal of the Church and of all believers, and for the ongoing evangelization of humanity. 

👉 With Respect To Sex by Daryl Glick 
St. Augustine prayed, "Grant me chastity, Lord, but not yet" (Confessions, VIII, 7). His was a classic case of someone wanting to have his cake and eat it too. For saints and sinners, and everyone in between, purity is a sensitive subject, and one which occasions struggle and trials and sometimes more than a little doubt and worry. Today it's not uncommon to find Catholics who seem to accept everything the Church teaches except when it comes to sexual morality. Here they prefer to simply "follow their own conscience" (a lax conscience, perhaps?). Yet these teachings are a basic part of Catholic doctrine, and haven't changed over the past 2,00 years. Picking and choosing is risky business. The Church, we must remember, teaches not her own doctrine, but that of her Founder, who said, "Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Mt 28:20). The virtue of purity is often misunderstood and even maligned these days. Some call it a "Victorian prejudice," puritanical, or repressive. But are we really happier than before we were "liberated"? Sexual permissiveness has had some ugly offspring: casual acceptance of pre-marital sex, a sharp rise in divorce and abortions, teenage promiscuity, and the blatant appeal to sexual appetites in television, movies, and advertising. Maybe it's time to take a closer look at the Church's teachings on purity.

👉 LOVE UNLEASHES LIFE 
This pro-life talk at Google's headquarters was a hit - Mountain View, Calif., Jun 22, 2017 CNA/EWTN News - 
A pro-life activist walks into Google’s headquarters and delivers a speech so compelling that within 24 hours, the online video of it surpassed a similar speech given by the head of Planned Parenthood. It may sound like the start to a far-fetched joke, but on April 20th, pro-life speaker and activist Stephanie Gray did just that. Gray was the co-founder of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform and served as its executive director for several year before starting the ministry which she now runs, Love Unleashes Life

👉 VESPERS WITH PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS - HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS - St Patrick's Cathedral, New York - Thursday, 24 September 2015         This evening, my brothers and sisters, I have come to join you – priests and men and women of consecrated life – in praying that our vocations will continue to build up the great edifice of God’s Kingdom in this country. I know that, as a presbyterate in the midst of God’s people, you suffered greatly in the not distant past by having to bear the shame of some of your brothers who harmed and scandalized the Church in the most vulnerable of her members… In the words of the Book of Revelation, I say that you “have come forth from the great tribulation” (Rev 7:14). I accompany you at this moment of pain and difficulty, and I thank God for your faithful service to his people. In the hope of helping you to persevere on the path of fidelity to Jesus Christ, I would like to offer two brief reflections.

👉 MEETING WITH CLERGY, MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS AND SEMINARIANS - ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
Sports field of St Mary’s School, Nairobi (Kenya) - Thursday, 26 November 2015 - In our life as disciples of Jesus, there must be no room for personal ambition, for money, for worldly importance. We follow Jesus to the very last step of his earthly life: the cross. He will make sure you rise again, but you have to keep following him to the end. I tell you this in all seriousness, because the Church is not a business or an NGO. The Church is a mystery: the mystery of Jesus, who looks at each of us and says: “Follow me”. So let this be clear: Jesus is the one who calls. We have to enter by the door when he calls, not by the window; and we have to follow in his footsteps. Obviously, when Jesus chooses us, he does not “canonize” us; we continue to be the same old sinners. If there is anyone here – a priest or a religious – who doesn’t think that he or she is a sinner, please raise your hand… We are all sinners, starting with me. But the tenderness and love of Jesus keep us going.


SEXUAL RECOVERY TO CHASTITY 

👉 LOVE, AGAIN – On a celibate breakup and what happened after. 
by Wesley Hill May 10th 2018 
Before I knew what was happening, or before I was willing to admit that I knew what was happening, it was too late to save the friendship. 

👉 COURAGE INTERNATIONAL - a few documents 
👉 40 Years of Courage         
The inspiration for the ministry that would eventually be established as Courage first came to Terence Cardinal Cooke, Archbishop of New York, in the spring of 1978.  Cardinal Cooke wished to start a ministry that would specifically address the pastoral needs and concerns of lay persons experiencing same-sex attractions who desired to live chastely in accordance with Catholic teaching.  The Cardinal consulted with the Director of Spiritual Development for the Archdiocese of New York, Father Benedict Groeschel (then OFM Cap., later CFR) who advised that Father John Harvey OSFS, a priest from Philadelphia, would be the ideal person to lead such a ministry.  Father Harvey, a moral theologian, professor, and pastoral counsellor, had already written guidelines for confessors on the question of homosexuality and was giving retreats to priests and brothers in perpetual vows who were committed to living out their vow of chaste celibacy amid the experience of same-sex attraction. 
👉 Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care 

👉 Why three gay Catholics left the Church – and why they returned 
By Mary Rezac - 
Philadelphia, Pa., Oct 15, 2015 -         Dan, Rilene and Paul knew that once their stories were out, life would not be the same. “We’ve been advised not to google ourselves,” Rilene said, laughing. These three are the subjects of a recently released documentary, “Desire of the Everlasting Hills,” which chronicles their stories of having same-sex attraction, and how they eventually found peace in the Catholic Church.

👉 Desire of the Everlasting Hills 
👉 Documentary Discussion Guide 
I was captivated by the beauty of these two men and woman's stories. Though I may not agree with all there decisions I found my self crying because I have many of those same desires for love, god and intimacy. I feel more human after seeing this. Homosexuality is is tough topic to talk about and these directors made a good effort of being authentic and taking political stance. I found myself laughing and crying at the same time because I saw myself in those three humans stories. I don't give the film a 10 because The cuts on the film could have been done a lot more smoothly. Also the audio was terrible when the interviewer was asking questions, subtitles are not good enough. I think this movie could reach bigger audience if not all the people were homosexual because gays and straights both struggle with balancing their desire for God, Love, and Intimacy. We all desire the infinite.

👉 Create in Me a Clean Heart - A Pastoral Response to Pornography 
“A clean heart create for me, God.” (Ps 51:12)    The document Create in Me a Clean Heart: A Pastoral Response to Pornography Use was developed by the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). It was approved by the full body of the USCCB at its November 2015 General Meeting. As pastors of the Catholic Church, we offer this statement to give a word of hope and healing to those who have been harmed by pornography and to raise awareness of its pervasiveness and harms.1 In the confessional and in our daily ministry and work with families, we have seen the corrosive damage caused by pornography—children whose innocence is stolen; men and women who feel great guilt and shame for viewing pornography occasionally or habitually; spouses who feel betrayed and traumatized; and men, women and children exploited by the pornography industry. While the production and use of pornography has always been a problem, in recent years its impact has grown exponentially, in large part due to the Internet and mobile technology. Some have even described it as a public health crisis. Everyone, in some way, is affected by increased pornography use in society. We all suffer negative consequences from its distorted view of the human person and sexuality. As bishops, we are called to proclaim anew the abundant mercy and healing of God found in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and through his Church.

👉 Pastoral Ministry to Young People with Same-Sex Attraction 
“As Bishops, we wish to address the pastoral needs of adolescents and young adults who question their sexual identity or experience feelings of same-sex attraction.  We are concerned for the spiritual good of all persons, and want to help them live out their call ‘to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity’.  Convinced that ‛only what is true can ultimately be pastoral,’ we offer this guidance, by way of general principles and pastoral guidelines, to all Catholics, pastors, parents and educators, as well as to young adults themselves,” the Commission states in its introduction to the pastoral letter. 
While stressing the fact that the Church in her teaching never condemns persons with same-sex attraction, the Bishops note that “while homosexual acts are always objectively wrong, same-sex inclinations are not in themselves sinful or a moral failing”. (…) “For many people, same-sex attraction constitutes a trial.   They therefore deserve to be approached by pastors with charity and prudence.” In its letter, the Commission offers various pastoral guidelines, in addition to expressing its “profound gratitude to all those who wisely and lovingly guide young people with a same-sex attraction: priests and pastoral associates, parents and educators”.

👉 MY JUDGMENT BEFORE GOD 
(Dr. Gloria Polo's testimony) Translated from Spanish to English by Susanna Vallejo. 
👉 Alternative source of Dr. Gloria Polo's testimony 

👉 Our Father’s Gift of Tenderness Is Designed to Cure Sexual Obsessions 
Since the time of the Apostles, when Jesus first called them his little children, through the action 
of the Holy Spirit, God the Father developed the assembly of disciples Jesus established as his Church into a community of faith, a living social body endowed with many of the traits we identify with the family. Jesus gave birth to his Church through the blood and water that flowed from his side opened by the soldier’s lance as He lay dead upon the Cross; just as God had brought forth Eve from Adam’s opened side. Of course this is symbolic imagery, but it expresses a profound truth that God has taken the trouble to reveal to us in this way. Having given birth to his Church – this assembly of his disciples – Jesus made her his Bride in a Marriage God first made with mankind as a betrothal at the moment when He was conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit, and as God’s Son was united to a human flesh. From conception to resurrection, Jesus took on the human roles of both Husband and Father.

👉 Meet the monks who spend their lives praying for Ireland's priests  
By Kevin Jones Dublin, Ireland, Mar 17, 2017     Prayer, reparation and praising God are the focus of a new Benedictine priory in Ireland, which focuses especially on reparation for the sins of priests. “It was never our predetermined plan to come to Ireland,” Silverstream Priory’s Father Benedict Anderson, O.S.B., told CNA. “But we believe that, through circumstances that we could never have foreseen, Divine Providence placed us here to play some role, however modest, in the life of the Irish Church.”

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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best efforts as human beings to make sense of our lives in general - and of our human sexuality in particular - and to also include the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium; given that the Church has been accumulating the wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7     G.S.

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© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Tuesday, March 19, 2019

HUMAN RESISTANCE TO GOD'S PLAN & PRINCIPLES - God's motives are entirely selfless and motivated exclusively for our highest good here on Earth and in eternity

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There are facts and truths that "sexual libertarians" don't want society or public opinion to know, that even they don't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To define one's identity on the basis of our sexuality alone is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you. G.S.

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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best human efforts to make sense of our lives - and of our human sexuality in particular - also including the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium. The Church has been accumulating much valuable wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7 
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik

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 1- GOD'S PLAN & PRINCIPLES FOR HAPPINESS OF ALL 

SCROLL DOWN 👇 = 2- WE RESIST BY PRIORITIZING OUR OWN PLEASURE 

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In each case, please go to the link for the complete article.

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👉 The Testimony of Gloria Polo - “I was at the gates of heaven and of hell” 

If someone might doubt, or think that God does not exist, that life beyond is something from the films, or that with death all ends, do yourself a favor and read this testimony! But read it from the beginning to the end! Even the most skeptical opinion, perhaps, will change! We are dealing here with something that really occurred! Gloria Polo is a woman that “died”, she passed to the other world and returned precisely to give her testimony to the incredulous. God gives us many proofs, but we always deny His existence. Gloria Polo actually lives in Colombia, she continues to exercise the same profession that she had before this event. She remained with enormous scars, but she has a normal life; this difference is that now she is a woman with great faith! She travels a lot, in order to give her testimony to thousands of people, fulfilling the mission that God confided to her (she has the authorization from the part of the Church for this). This is a transcription of one of her testimonies, given in a church in Caracas (Venezuela), May 5, 2005, and it is translated from the Spanish original version. It is authentic! IT IS NOT A FAKE! Padre Leone Orlando 👉 Video version with simultaneous translation 

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This English version was translated from the Italian translation of Padre Orlando, with the acknowledgement and encouragement of Gloria Polo, by Father Joseph Dwight. 

👉 Témoignage de Mme Gloria Polo - "du Paradis à l'Enfer" 

Une mort clinique - Un jugement - Une seconde chance - Mme Gloria Polo, dentiste à Bogota, (Colombie), était à Lisbonne et Fatima, la dernière semaine de Février 2007, pour donner son témoignage. Sur son site internet : Dra. Gloria Polo. Testimonio místico. Colombia., apparaît un extrait (en anglais) d'une interview qu'elle a accordée à 'Radio Maria' en Colombie. Frères et soeurs, c'est merveilleux pour moi de partager avec vous en cet instant, l'ineffable grâce que m'a donnée Notre Seigneur, il y a maintenant plus de dix ans. 👉 Version vidéo avec traduction simultanée 

👉 SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE 
By Leo Walsh, CSB - 
God is all perfect, by definition. God created all things. So in some way everything that is, is an image of God. Therefore, everything points to God, gives us an idea of God, however imperfect. Everything is a sign of God. The heavens proclaim the glory of God. All things do. The signifying of one thing by another is something well-known to us. We don't always interpret the signs correctly, of course, but mostly we do. A face signifies a particular person, a genuine smile signifies friendship in some way, a false smile points to treachery. An older couple holding hands as they come to church, a mother pacifying a crying child, teenagers' bored body language, a young woman in silent prayer.... There are endless examples of this efficacious sacramentality in ordinary life, where the sign brings about what it signifies. A gift, which is a sign of friendship, deepens the friendship; a hug which is a sign of togetherness, brings about togetherness. 

👉 Affirmation of the Church’s Teaching on the Gift of Sexuality  
April 4-6, 2018 - We, the undersigned scholars, affirm that the Catholic Church’s teachings on the gift of sexuality, on marriage, and on contraception are true and defensible on many grounds, among them the truths of reason and revelation concerning the dignity of the human person. Scholarly support for the Church’s teachings on the gift of sexuality, on marriage, and on contraception has burgeoned in recent decades. Moreover, institutes and programs supporting that teaching have been established all over the world. Even some secular feminists and secular programs have begun to acknowledge the harms of contraception. These facts, however, seem to have escaped the notice of the authors of “On the Ethics of Using Contraceptives” (hereafter, the Wijngaards Statement) which urges the Catholic Church to change its teaching and issue an “official magisterial document [that] should revoke the absolute ban on the use of ‘artificial’ contraceptives, and allow the use of modern non-abortifacient contraceptives for both prophylactic and family planning purposes.” The Wijngaards Statement, unfortunately, offers nothing new to discussions about the morality of contraception and, in fact, repeats the arguments that the Church has rejected and that numerous scholars have engaged and refuted since 1968.

👉 ENCYCLICAL LETTER HUMANAE VITAE OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF PAUL VI 
The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships. The fulfillment of this duty has always posed problems to the conscience of married people, but the recent course of human society and the concomitant changes have provoked new questions. The Church cannot ignore these questions, for they concern matters intimately connected with the life and happiness of human beings. I. PROBLEM AND COMPETENCY OF THE MAGISTERIUM 2. The changes that have taken place are of considerable importance and varied in nature. In the first place there is the rapid increase in population which has made many fear that world population is going to grow faster than available resources, with the consequence that many families and developing countries would be faced with greater hardships. This can easily induce public authorities to be tempted to take even harsher measures to avert this danger. There is also the fact that not only working and housing conditions but the greater demands made both in the economic and educational field pose a living situation in which it is frequently difficult these days to provide properly for a large family. Also noteworthy is a new understanding of the dignity of woman and her place in society, of the value of conjugal love in marriage and the relationship of conjugal acts to this love. But the most remarkable development of all is to be seen in man's stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature to the point that he is endeavoring to extend this control over every aspect of his own life—over his body, over his mind and emotions, over his social life, and even over the laws that regulate the transmission of life.

👉 Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 155: Consenting to Sex 
By Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD         MAY 30, 2018 - Recent news articles exploring the post-#MeToo world of ro­mance have noted the phenomenon of cell phone “consent apps,” al­lowing millennials to sign digital contracts before they have sex with their peers, sometimes strangers they have just met. Many of these apps are being refined to include a panic button that can be pressed at any time to withdraw any consent given. Lawyers reviewing the prac­tice, as might be anticipated, have urged caution, noting that consent apps are not able to provide defini­tive proof of consent, because feelings may “change throughout an evening, and even in the moments before an act.” When we look at modern views about sex, it’s not a stretch to sum them up this way: as long as two consenting adults are involved, the bases are covered. When it comes to “sex in the moment,” consent is touted as key, allowing for almost all mutu­ally-agreed upon behaviors or prac­tices. Yet this approach to sex is fundamentally flawed, and it’s often the woman who is the first to no­tice. Even when consenting unmar­ried couples scrupulously use con­traception, there remains an aware­ness, particularly on the part of the woman, that a pregnancy could follow, and a concern about who will be left holding the bag if that were to happen. Sex between men and women involves real asymmetries and vulnerabilities, with men oftentimes being, in the words of sociologist Mark Regne­rus, “less discriminating” in their sex drives than women, eager to forge ahead as long as there ap­pears to be some semblance of consent. Women often sense, rightly, that consent for a partic­ular sexual act ought to be part of something bigger, a wider scope of commitment. 


Emotions can be confusing! But what if you could explore them in an emotion wheel, and dig deeper with a simply powerful emotions list? The Plutchik Model of Emotions provides a simply logical way to make sense of feelings. Plus! At the bottom of this page you’ll find our top emotions resources, and a form to get your free emotions list with dozens of emotions explained.

👉 Our Father's Gift of Tenderness is a Healing Gift 
We 
invite you, the reader, to adopt with us our Church’s teaching that our human sexuality is an integral part of the gift of our human life entrusted to us by God, and because He is the giver, He also has a plan for our individual and collective happiness that includes instructions on how to make the proper and best use of all our gifts and capacities. This includes our capacity for tenderness in a whole host of different relationships and varied situations – including all that can be defined as pertaining to our human sexuality. This also implies that before God we all have a responsibility to learn everything that can be known about his plan for us, to govern our lives and actions in accord with this plan, and then to help others to do the same – especially doing all we can to transmit God’s plan to our children – and to provide them with an apprenticeship into life, that they may come to know and understand their sexuality and develop their ability to give and receive tenderness in appropriate and chaste ways.

👉 God's Plan For Life 
The Scriptures reveal that when God designed a plan for life, he used careful and loving advanced planning. In Jer 1:5, God says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” God knew Jeremiah before he was born. It follows that God knows all of us even before we are born. God's advanced loving and careful plan is confirmed by Rom 8:29-30 where Paul says: “For those he foreknew he also pre-destined to be conformed to the image of His son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” The same notion of foreknowledge is revealed in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, 1:3-4: “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” Love requires advanced planning. God’s plan for life began before the world was made. 

👉 WHEN TRUST IS LOST 
By Dan B. Allender - 
© 2010 RBC Ministries - Sexual abuse is one of the few crimes that brings more shame to the victim than to the offender. It takes away a person's innocence and self-respect, and usually silences the victim so that help is difficult to find. The wounds and struggles that follow are often as difficult to deal with as the original abuse. Many victims feel alone, confused, depressed, and sometimes as if they are going crazy. If you have been sexually abused, or if you know someone struggling with this problem, the following pages describe a process of recovery that is filled with hope and help. Some of what follows will be difficult to accept. But the pain of understanding and healing is far less than the pain of denial and despair. 

👉 Sexuality, memories, dreams, evil suffered, forgiveness, and God 
Although we often are inclined to wonder whether we are where we need to be, we believe that the Father always brings about his will in those who are open; so we can say that we are where He wants us to be, whether we like being here or not for the moment. It can be said to be a normal experience to have at some point troubling memories or dreams which, though they seem utterly real, may or may not be related to actual events. Such things are part of our condition as human beings. Some people have more vivid dreams or numerous memories than others, and some are hardly aware of any at all; while others are troubled by some of their memories or dreams or images.... Are they real? Are potential witnesses denying the reality of what happened to me or am I imagining the event? 

👉 THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY THE TRUTH AND MEANING OF HUMAN SEXUALITY - Guidelines for Education within the Family 
INTRODUCTION - The Situation and the Problem
1. Among the many difficulties parents encounter today, despite different social contexts, one certainly stands out: giving children an adequate preparation for adult life, particularly with regard to education in the true meaning of sexuality. There are many reasons for this difficulty and not all of them are new. In the past, even when the family did not provide specific sexual education, the general culture was permeated by respect for fundamental values and hence served to protect and maintain them. In the greater part of society, both in developed and developing countries, the decline of traditional models has left children deprived of consistent and positive guidance, while parents find themselves unprepared to provide adequate answers.
This new context is made worse by what we observe: an eclipse of the truth about man which, among other things, exerts pressure to reduce sex to something commonplace. In this area, society and the mass media most of the time provide depersonalized, recreational and often pessimistic information. Moreover, this information does not take into account the different stages of formation and development of children and young people, and it is influenced by a distorted individualistic concept of freedom, in an ambience lacking the basic values of life, human love and the family. Then the school, making itself available to carry out programmes of sex education, has often done this by taking the place of the family and, most of the time, with the aim of only providing information. Sometimes this really leads to the deformation of consciences.
In many cases parents have given up their duty in this field or agreed to delegate it to others, because of the difficulty and their own lack of preparation. In such a situation, many Catholic parents turn to the Church to take up the task of providing guidance and suggestions for educating their children, especially in the phase of childhood and adolescence. At times, parents themselves have brought up their difficulties when they are confronted by teaching given at school and thus brought into the home by their children. The Pontifical Council for the Family has received repeated and pressing requests to provide guidelines in support of parents in this delicate area of education.


2- WE RESIST BY PRIORITIZING OUR OWN PLEASURE 

👉 Priests still suffering from effects of Humanae Vitae dissenters, Vatican cardinal says 
“Lead us not into temptation” is the sixth petition of the Our Father.  Πειρασμός (Peirasmòs), the Greek word used in this passage for ‘temptation’, means a trial or test.  Disciples petition God to be protected against the supreme test of ungodly powers. The trial is related to Jesus’s cup in Gethsemane, the same cup which his disciples would also taste (Mk 10: 35-45). The dark side of the interior of the cup is an abyss. It reveals the awful consequences of God’s judgment upon sinful humanity.  In August, 1968, the weight of the evangelical Πειρασμός fell on many priests, including myself,” the cardinal began. 

👉 500 Catholic scholars lash back at Humanae Vitae critics 

Washington D.C., Sep 20, 2016 - Nearly 50 years after the “prophetic” papal document Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Church’s longstanding teaching against contraception continues to promote the human good, said a group of Catholic thinkers on Tuesday. “We hold that Catholic teaching respects the true dignity of the human person and is conducive to happiness,” said hundreds of Catholic scholars in a Sept. 20 document. “Humanae Vitae speaks against the distorted view of human sexuality and intimate relationships that many in the modern world promote. Humanae Vitae was prophetic when it listed some of the harms that would result from the widespread use of contraception,” they said. More than 500 Catholic scholars with doctoral degrees in theology, medicine, law and other fields have signed the document in support of Catholic teaching, titled “Affirmation of the Catholic Church’s Teaching on the Gift of Sexuality.”

👉 Maternal-Fetal Attachment and the Culture of Life - Part One  
By Bridget Campion, PhD - Pregnancy has always been regarded as a time of growth and development for the unborn baby. However, since the later part of the twentieth century, researchers have been turning their attention to the pregnant woman and the effects that this life-stage holds for her. Far from being a time of simply waiting for the baby to be born, pregnancy is now regarded as a period with its own tasks, during which women undergo deep psychological change and development. While much of this is preparational insofar as it serves the wellbeing of the mother and infant in post-natal life, in fact researchers are finding that pregnancy is a very significant time in itself, with women bonding to their unborn children. 

👉 Maternal-Fetal Attachment and the Culture of Life - Part Two 
By Bridget Campion, PhD - 
The first article of this two-part series provided an examination of maternal-fetal attachment, a phenomenon recognized by researchers in which the bond between a mother and her child begins in pregnancy, leading to developmental behaviours that protect both mother and child before birth and prepare them for life after birth. Pregnancy, with all of the growth it entails, thus becomes an important developmental stage for the pregnant woman as well as for the baby she carries. What is the importance of maternal-fetal attachment within the context of a Culture of Life?

👉 Bringing Sanity to Sex: Part I By Karlo Broussard 
February 08, 2017 - Sanity is to see what is (reality) and live in accord with it. If your grandfather thinks leprechauns are jumping in his butter dish and he gives them his butter knife to use as a springboard, then his sanity is defective. 
He mistakes a hallucination for what is real and behaves accordingly. As he tells you about this phenomenon at the dinner table, you probably would invite him to become a citizen of the real world and see reality as it is and live in it. I use this example to prompt the question, “Is there a real world when it comes to sex and our sexual powers?” In other words, is there a meaning to sex that is independent of what you or I make sex out to be? Is there a reality to sex, and thus to our sexual powers, that we ought to reverence and live in accord with? Is there a real world with regard to sex that we could invite someone to live in? Is there such a thing as sexual sanity?

👉 Bringing Sanity to Sex: Part II By Karlo Broussard 
In my previous article, we saw that there is such a thing as sexual sanity, an objective reality with which we need to live in accord in order to be sexually sane. Regardless of someone’s personal motive for engaging in sexual activity, procreation is its natural end. Now, the charge that such a view reduces human sex acts to mere biology might have force if producing children were the end of the story. But it’s not. There is another purpose of sex intrinsic to making babies: the physical and emotional drawing together of spouses. Catholic theology calls these the procreative and unitive dimensions of sex. There are two ways to see this intrinsic connection. The first sees the spousal friendship as finalizing the procreative dimension inasmuch as it makes sex a human reproductive act. The second sees how the unitive is bound to the procreative for the sake of rearing children.

👉 Watch a 20-week baby in utero with new groundbreaking technology 

Abortion, really? - London, England, Jun 6, 2017             When the fetal ultrasound gained popularity in the 1970s, it was hailed as a “window to the womb.” But now, new technology could offer a much more in-depth view of babies before birth. Courtesy of a recent multimillion dollar project based out of London, some parents are able to see clear scans of every movement and organ of their babies in the womb starting as early as 20 weeks, using advanced MRI technology. 

👉 Gradual Shifts in Abortion Laws: Will they be effective? 
One of the interesting developments in the 
area of abortion is a small but real shift in the laws in some States in the US. As we know, Canada continues without a law regulating abortion, meaning that a woman could technically obtain an abortion right up until delivery. The reason is that the Canadian Criminal Code defines “person” as someone who has been completely delivered from the birth canal of his or her mother. Until then, a child is not deemed to be a person, which means that the child has no rights whatsoever. At the beginning of the journey down the birth canal the baby makes it known that it is positioning itself to enter the world, and, as the mother’s contractions intensify, maternity staff prepare to help guide its entrance into the world, intervening only when necessary to aid the process. The feelings of excitement, awe, relief and gratitude that occur when the baby finally appears are intense. Thank God, we say! Thank God, too, for all the personnel involved in safely delivering a new human infant. Everyone present knows this is a baby, a tiny human being, an independent and unique person, yet our law insists that he or she is not legally a person in Canada until “completely delivered from the birth canal.”

👉 HUMAN DECISION SYSTEM 
👉 Reclaim God's Plan for Sexual Health         You are very familiar with the fact that you have an Immune System and a Digestive System, but did you know that you also have what we call a Human Decision System? This remarkable system is centered in your brain and plays a dominant role in every decision you make—positive or negative. Learning how your Human Decision System works, how to harness and direct it—this is the key to your success in consistently making the choices you desire most. Begin today to “reclaim God’s plan for sexual health”, one day at a time.

👉 Why Sterile Heterosexual Acts and Homosexual Acts Are Not the Same 
Karlo Broussard May 10, 2017 - When a homosexual couple are unable to generate children after four years, no one wonders why. That’s because the nature of their sexual activity is not baby-making—it’s not the type of activity that is naturally ordered toward producing children.
On the other hand, a heterosexual couple who, due to age or medical condition or some other factor, cannot conceive a child, do engage in baby-making activity. The genital union that they achieve is the kind of activity that nature ordains to produce children. And if it were not for the unintended (accidental) physical defect, the natural end of procreation would be achieved. So a heterosexual couple’s inability to generate children involves an impeded natural ability, whereas a homosexual couple’s inability to generate children involves no natural ability. To use an example from my friend and colleague Trent Horn, the former is analogous to a paralyzed man who is unable to walk—an external factor is frustrating the achievement of a natural end. The latter is analogous to a man trying to fly by flapping his arms.

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There are facts and truths that the "Gay Lobby" doesn't want society or public opinion to know, that even IT doesn't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - is that we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To identify oneself on the basis of just the one element of our sexuality is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you.
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik

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👉 On the Importance of Friendship 
By Father John McCloskey - One of the great impoverishments of contemporary American life is the difficulty of forming and maintaining strong male friendships. (Women, on the whole, seem to do much better in befriending one another.) Virtually the only time I see groups of men meeting together regularly occurs in front of a television – at home or at a bar or restaurant – watching sports. Most of the time, these men are primarily enjoying not each other but the game. Now, there is nothing wrong about enjoying sports together or enjoying other hobbies and social activities. An important aspect of male bonding occurs around the pursuit of vocations or avocations. Still, a deeper dimension of friendship often seems missing. 

👉 “ MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM ” 
TOWARDS A PATH OF DIALOGUE ON THE QUESTION OF GENDER THEORY IN EDUCATION - It is becoming increasingly clear that we are now facing with what might accurately be called an educational crisis, especially in the field of affectivity and sexuality. In many places, curricula are being planned and implemented which “allegedly convey a neutral conception of the person and of life, yet in fact reflect an anthropology opposed to faith and to right reason”.1 The disorientation regarding anthropology which is a widespread feature of our cultural landscape has undoubtedly helped to destabilise the family as an institution, bringing with it a tendency to cancel out the differences between men and women, presenting them instead as merely the product of historical and cultural conditioning.

Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute - University of St. Michael's College at University of Toronto - 👉 BIOETHICS MATTERS - List of Articles 2007-20 

👉 The absurd logic of assisted suicide 
By Andrew Coyne            If assisted suicide is a right to be released from suffering, how can that be restricted to adults? Are we to condemn children to endless torment? This is not some dire prophecy. It is, as the panel reminds us, the logic of assisted suicide. By making it lawful to euthanize children, we would only be following where Belgium and the Netherlands have led; by applying it to the mentally ill, we would be doing no more than Switzerland has already done. If that is where we want to go, so be it. But let us at least be clear that that is what is really at stake.

👉 Finer points of consent missing in assisted suicide bill  
By Andrew Coyne        Consent needs to be demonstrated, not assumed. That so many seem willing to take it as given is among the more disturbing aspects of this debate. Throughout the debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide, the trump card for their proponents has been consent. If we were crossing lines few societies in history have been willing to cross, erasing distinctions once considered inviolable — between allowing death to take its course and hastening it, between killing yourself and someone else killing you, between pain relief and poison — it was all right, because it was being done with the consent of the patient. Yet, far from demanding that the bill be tightened, the majority of the critics seem concerned only that it should be loosened further: to permit the euthanization of children, for example, or to allow those anticipating being mentally incapacitated in future to make provision for their death in advance — not because they are necessarily suffering now, but in dread of the suffering they believe they will find intolerable in future. Will they, in the event? Might they have changed their mind, if not? Who can say? But their “consent” would already have been obtained. Consent is a powerful concept. But it needs to be demonstrated, not assumed. That so many seem willing to take it as given is among the more disturbing aspects of this debate.

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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best efforts as human beings to make sense of our lives in general - and of our human sexuality in particular - and to also include the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium; given that the Church has been accumulating the wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7     G.S.

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© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Tuesday, January 15, 2019

PORNOGRAPHY - The destructiveness of Porn - Recovery from Porn Addiction

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There are facts and truths that "sexual libertarians" don't want society or public opinion to know, that even they don't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To define one's identity on the basis of our sexuality alone is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------

My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best human efforts to make sense of our lives - and of our human sexuality in particular - also including the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium. The Church has been accumulating much valuable wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7 
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik

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👇
  Please scroll down to find each section. 👇

1- THE DESTRUCTIVENESS OF PORN  
2- RECOVERY FROM PORN ADDICTION  

 For each, go to the link for the complete article.

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1- THE DESTRUCTIVENESS OF PORN  

👉 C. S. Lewis speaks out on Masturbation 
By Jeremy Myers - 
A while back someone submitted a question to me about masturbation and whether it was sinful or not. It is a very … touchy … subject to deal with. So as I was recently reading through the Letters of C. S. Lewis, I was surprised to learned that 
(1) C. S. Lewis struggled with the temptation of masturbation, and 
(2) he had a pretty good theological answer for it. Here is What C. S. Lewis said about Masturbation: 
I agree that the stuff about ‘wastage of vital fluids’ is rubbish. For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sending the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.

👉 CAN SHE REALLY ‘PLAY THAT GAME, TOO’? 
A narrative exploration of women’s relation to hookup culture at Middlebury College By Leah Marie Fessler - For those I don't know: Hi! My name is Leah Fessler and I graduated Middlebury College in Spring 2015. At Midd I was an English and American Literatures major, and focused on creative non-fiction writing. For my senior thesis, a long-form non-fiction project, I investigated romantic and sexual culture at Middlebury College. After interviewing almost 100 students, and surveying over 300, I wrote "Can She Really 'Play That Game, Too?", which documents the realities of hookup culture at Middlebury from a female perspective. It's explicit, entertaining, and 100% true.

👉 Hook-up culture is making women miserable, study finds  
New York City, N.Y., May 20, 2016 - Leah Fessler considers herself a feminist. And the standard feminist narrative is that women can have, and indeed enjoy, casual sex without consequences – physical, emotional, or otherwise. But when her experience with hookup culture (and that of her friends') in college failed to live up to its empowering promises and left her emotionally empty, Fessler decided to look a little deeper. In an article written for Quartz, Fessler explains her quest to examine what it was about the prominent hookup culture, and the ill-defined, non-committal “pseudo-relationships,” at her Middlebury college campus that were making her miserable. “Far more frequent, however, were pseudo-relationships, the mutant children of meaningless sex and loving partnerships. Two students consistently hook up with one another – and typically, only each other – for weeks, months, even years,” Fessler wrote. “Yet per unspoken social code, neither party is permitted emotional involvement, commitment, or vulnerability. To call them exclusive would be 'clingy,' or even 'crazy.'”

👉 PLAYING THE GAME 
A lot of women don’t enjoy hookup culture—so why do we force ourselves to participate? By Leah Fessler - in Quartz - May 17, 2016 - This article is more than 2 years old. 
At Middlebury College, I lived a double life. On the surface, I was successful. I was surrounded by diverse, intellectual friends. I led a popular student website and was active in the arts and athletics. I loved learning and made Phi Beta Kappa my junior year. I’m also a white, straight, cisgendered female. If you’re thinking, “Please. Your privileged ass has nothing to complain about,” you’re right. But my internal life was characterized by paralyzing anxiety and depression. I judged myself harshly, to the point of disgust. I drove myself to excessive exercising and near-anorexia. I felt this way because of men—or so I thought. While there was a major gulf between my public self and my private one, the one thing that remained consistent were my politics. I told myself that I was a feminist, despite subjecting myself to unfulfilling, emotionally damaging sexual experiences. And I believed it, too.


👉 
Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, Too 
By Kate Taylor - July 12, 2013         At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior at the University of Pennsylvania did what she often does when she has a little free time. She texted her regular hookup — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating. What was he up to? He texted back: Come over. So she did. They watched a little TV, had sex and went to sleep. 
Their relationship, she noted, is not about the meeting of two souls. “We don’t really like each other in person, sober,” she said, adding that “we literally can’t sit down and have coffee.” Ask her why she hasn’t had a relationship at Penn, and she won’t complain about the death of courtship or men who won’t commit. Instead, she’ll talk about “cost-benefit” analyses and the “low risk and low investment costs” of hooking up.

👉 The Brain Science of Porn Addiction: How You Got Here 
BY THE RECLAIM TEAM - #R008 - Engaging in unwanted sexual outlets (porn, masturbation, live sex chat, escorts, paid sex) or even streams of short-term, meaningless relationships can create a great deal of shame, despair and self-loathing. Most struggling individuals don't understand that specific brain processes that have developed their behaviors through specific stages over time. If you are struggling with pornography, sex addiction, masturbation, or other unhealthy sexual behaviors, these insights can help you better understand how you got here.

👉 Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption                     Original Investigation - The Brain on Porn - July 2014 - By Simone Kühn, PhD1; Jürgen Gallinat, PhD2,3 
Abstract - Importance      Since pornography appeared on the Internet, the accessibility, affordability, and anonymity of consuming visual sexual stimuli have increased and attracted millions of users. Based on the assumption that pornography consumption bears resemblance with reward-seeking behavior, novelty-seeking behavior, and addictive behavior, we hypothesized alterations of the frontostriatal network in frequent users. 
Objective  To determine whether frequent pornography consumption is associated with the frontostriatal network. 

👉 5 Proven Ways Pornography Warps Your Mind 
The following is an excerpt from Your Brain on Porn: 5 Proven Ways Porn Warps Your Mind and 3 Biblical Ways to Renew It - Book Review  
👉 Introduction: Porn is Everywhere - The Great Porn Experiment 
👉 Finding #1: Watching Porn Decreases Sexual Satisfaction  
👉 Finding #2: Watching Porn Disconnects Us from Real Relationships  
👉 Finding #3: Watching Porn Lowers Our View of Women  
👉 Finding #4: Watching Porn Desensitizes Us to Cruelty  
👉 Finding #5: Watching Porn Makes Us Want to Watch More Porn  
👉 Temptation Can Be Beaten - Accountability Works 

👉 He’s Not Afraid of Evil, but Young People are Scaring This Exorcist 
Patti Armstrong - 
As an exorcist, Father Patrick is sensitive to influences that are brushed off as harmless. Looking into the faces of teenagers these days, Father Patrick worries. Father Patrick is not his real name, but to keep his work as a parish priest manageable, his work in exorcism and deliverance is hidden to the general public. He has been a designated diocesan exorcist for 6 years. The bishop refers cases to Father Patrick if they are deemed legitimate. Although full-fledged possessions are rare, he said the numbers are increasing with more and more, people — especially young people — dabbling in the occult. “They often open a door they cannot close on their own,” he said.


👉 
Internet porn is the 'neon colosseum' of the digital age, expert says 

By Elise Harris - Rome, Italy, Oct 4, 2017 - It's well-known that in ancient Rome hundreds of thousands of people would pile into the stacked layers of stone seating in the Colosseum to watch gladiators fight to their death, cheering on as the warriors met a bloody and often drawn-out end. However, while being a “gladiator” in modern Rome has mostly become a way pick up extra cash in photo-ops with tourists, there are some who argue that the gruesome nature of the ancient battles, in which people would essentially celebrate and take pleasure in the pain of others, hasn't gone away, but has rather taken on a new, less obvious form in the digital world: pornography. When it comes to internet pornography, Dr. Donald Hilton Jr. of the University of Texas Health Science Center said we as a society have to learn to ask the “uncomfortable questions about our culture, why we're so easily voyeuristic to watch people being harmed.” While pornography has always been a problem, the new widespread access offered through the digital world has led to a culture that enjoys “watching women being hurt on screen,” he told CNA. Hilton recalled that in a tour of the Colosseum, his guide explained that throughout the centuries of its of operation, the structure “had up to several hundred thousand animals and gladiators dying in the colosseum with people watching them and enjoying watching their pain.” Now, “I think we have a neon colosseum, a colosseum of screens where far more, now, are watching people being harmed. And people are enjoying it,” he said, adding that in his opinion, “we're no better than the ancient Romans in that.” “In fact, in some way I think we're worse, because at least they did it openly, but we hide behind our screens at night and do it, and tell ourselves it's okay.”


2- RECOVERY FROM PORN ADDICTION  

👉 PORN ADDICTION ONLINE HELPS - A SHORT LIST 
While I was service the Diocese as Family Life Chaplain - from 2013 to 2020 - I first put together this short list of Internet services offering to help anyone seeking to be rid of their addiction to pornography use and the related sexual behaviours. I have just now, in early 2021, updated and expanded the list. 


👉 
Free Ebook: Hope After Porn 
4 women share their heartache...and how their marriages were saved. Today, over half of divorce cases involve one party having an obsessive interest in internet porn. More and more men withdraw from real intimacy with their wives and into digital worlds of fantasy. In this free ebook, Hope After Porn, you will read stories from four women who have personally known the devastation pornography can cause in a marriage. They give readers a glimpse of the betrayal, the hurt, and the choices they made to try and make a difference. In this book these four women talk about:
(1) 
Their husbands’ constant withdrawal into porn, and their deception and unfaithfulness.
(2) 
When their husbands reached a breaking point and started to make changes in their lives.
(3) 
How they learned to trust their husbands again, in spite of years of betrayal and lies. 
👉 Hope After Porn: Our Marriage Would Never Be the Same 
The following is chapter 1 of the book, Hope After Porn: 4 Women’s Tales of Heartbreak and How Their Marriages Were Saved. Download the whole e-book for free right now. 

👉 Not your grandpa's porn – Has the Church caught up to the problem? 
By Mary Rezac Denver, Colo., Apr 19, 2016 
Clay Olsen speaks to thousands of youth about a subject most people would rather not touch: pornography. As the founder and CEO of 👉 Fight the New Drug, an organization that educates people about pornography addiction, Olsen travels the country giving presentations to young people about how pornography is affecting their brains, their relationships and ultimately the world. Olsen told CNA that after one particular presentation, a young man asked a question that perfectly illustrates how drastically pornography has changed. “He asked me very sincerely whether Playboy was pornography or not,” Olsen recalled. “His definition of pornography had shifted so dramatically...that Playboy doesn’t even make the cut.” Importantly, this young man is the rule of his generation, not the exception, Olsen said. The effects of constant access to the Internet, made possible by the availability of personal laptops, tablets, and smartphones, has drastically changed how young people consume pornography in a way that many adults dangerously underestimate.

👉 The new celibacy? How porn may be destroying the impetus for sex 
By Mary Rezac Denver, Colo., Jun 11, 2017 
One of music artist John Mayer's most signature songs is “Daughters,” a sweet and simple tribute to the importance of parents' influence on their little girls. Here's the refrain: “So fathers, be good to your daughters, Daughters will love like you do. Girls become lovers who turn into mothers, So mothers, be good to your daughters too.”
But when John Mayer isn't crooning about your beautiful daughters, he's looking at naked pictures of them, sometimes hundreds at a time before he gets out of bed in the morning. In fact, he often prefers that to an actual human being, according to his wildly controversial 2010 interview with Playboy magazine. “You wake up in the morning, open a thumbnail page, and it leads to a Pandora's box of visuals. There have probably been days when I saw 300 (naked women) before I got out of bed,” he told the magazine. Unfortunately, Mayer's morning routine is not unique to him. Studies show that easy access to free internet pornography is having devastating effects on real-life relationships.

👉 IS PORNOGRAPHY a “Drug Addiction?” 
Written by Dr. Randall F. Hyde & Mark B. Kastleman - #R004
The mountains of clinical data and visual evidence as millions continue their out-of-control porn use despite consequences of divorce, loss of employment, destroyed reputations, prison time, etc., shouts the obvious: “YES, PORNOGRPAHY IS ADDICTIVE!” And just in case there are still a few stubborn hold-outs, research is being conducted by some of the world’s leading experts in the neuroscience and neuropsychology fields that will provide the clinical evidence required to officially enter sex and pornography as “addictions in the DMS (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
Some cringe with labeling pornography as “addictive” because they believe doing so affords the porn user an excuse: “I can’t help myself, I’m addicted.” This is a preposterous position. When someone is addicted to alcohol, do we excuse his behavior because “he can’t help it?” Just because someone suffers with an addiction doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a choice. For many years, my colleagues and I (Dr. Hyde) have worked in our clinics helping individuals break free from pornography and many other addictions. There is always a choice when it comes to breaking free from addictive behaviors.

👉 Your Brain and Masturbation 
By the RECLAIM Team - #R015 
In the midst of the battle with masturbation, struggling individuals don't usually stop to consider the brain science—why is masturbation so powerful, addictive, and hard to stop? Masturbation triggers the brain into releasing a flood of internal chemicals like dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. 
These natural "drugs" can give a quick, temporary escape and relief from stress, insomnia, difficult emotions, and other struggles. Masturbation rapidly evolves into a "drug of choice" for instant pleasure, self-medication, and escape. Contrary to the false claims of popular culture, masturbation is not a healthy outlet. RECLAiM will teach you the truth about masturbation—the brain science, underlying causes, and how to break free.

👉 What's the most convincing argument vs porn? Science. 
Mary Rezac San Francisco Mar 26, 2017 
In 2013, Beyonce Knowles topped GQ’s list of “The 100 Hottest Women of the 21st Century.” That same year, the “definitive men's magazine” that promises “sexy women” along with style advice, entertainment news and more ran a shorter listicle: “10 Reasons Why You Should Quit Watching Porn.” The list included reasons such as increased sexual impotence in men that regularly viewed pornography, and a reported lack of control of sexual desires. It was inspired by an interview with NoFap, an online community of people dedicated to holding each other accountable in abstaining from pornography and masturbation.The site clearly states that it is decidedly non-religious. Matt Fradd, on the other hand, is a Catholic. Fradd has spent much of his adult life urging people to quit pornography, and developing websites and resources to help pornography addicts. But even though he’s Catholic, Fradd’s new anti-porn book, “The Porn Myth,” won’t quote the saints or the Bible or recommend a regimen of rosaries.

👉 Physical Effects of Masturbation 
BY THE RECLAIM TEAM MEMBER—Dr. Bernell Christensen, PhD. - #R006 
With repetition, your brain can learn to prefer sexual fantasy and masturbation to real sexual intimacy with a real person. In fact, your brain's "arousal circuitry" can become so dominantly wired for "self-sex" that physical intimacy with a real person— your spouse—can become increasingly difficult and eventually virtually impossible. 
Sexual Fantasy & Masturbation = Impotence         In my clinic, I often work with individuals, both men and women, who suffer from sexual impotence. A common situation among men who engage in compulsive masturbation and sexual fantasy, is they have increasing difficulty becoming aroused by their partner.

👉 You Can Replace Masturbation With Healthy Outlets 
By the RECLAIM Team - #R012 
Through repetition over time, the pleasure center of your brain has learned to escape to masturbation as one of its favorite outlets for self-medication. Through RECLAIM, you will learn how to recognize your "triggers" early—the people, situations, and emotions that drive you to seek escape through masturbation. You will learn how to choose healthy pleasure outlets and literally "retrain" your brain so that masturbation ceases to be a problem in your life.



By the RECLAIM Team—#R014 
Way back in 1997, Time Magazine published an article titled, "Addicted, Why do People Get Hooked?" It cites some of the "cutting-edge" research in the area of the "brain science" behind addiction. What amazed us is how far we have come in research and understanding since then. Not that what the article discussed has been proven wrong—quite the opposite. The science in the article was dead-on and has been well established and further developed since then.


👉 Creating a ‘Safe Haven’ From the Pornography Pandemic 
CULTURE OF LIFE - JAN. 22, 2018 - By Judy Roberts 
On Feb. 17-18, the Archdiocese of New Orleans will inaugurate a new program to alert parents, educators and clergy about the harm posed by explicitly sexual material and arm them with protective tools. NEW ORLEANS — When New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond heard within a week three tragic stories about pornography’s impact on people in his archdiocese, he knew it was time to seek divine direction. “As I prayed about it, I said, ‘Okay, Lord, it’s a problem, but if I don’t do anything about it, it’s still a problem.’” Archbishop Aymond responded by assembling a team that is developing a five-year pastoral plan to educate parents, educators and clergy about the threat pornography presents and to give them the tools to protect themselves and their families. The plan will be introduced to the faithful Feb. 17-18 with “Safe Haven Sunday,” a weekend set aside to address the issue within the context of the liturgy. Homilies and prayer petitions will deal with the pornography problem, and parishes will distribute the book Equipped: Smart Catholic Parenting in a Sexualized Culture, which tells about a free sevenday email program offering practical tips on creating safe digital environments in the home. Anyone can enroll in the program by texting the word “secure” to 66866.

👉 What can priests practically do to combat the porn epidemic? 
By Mary Rezac Washington D.C. Jun 14, 2017 
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.



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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best efforts as human beings to make sense of our lives in general - and of our human sexuality in particular - and to also include the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium; given that the Church has been accumulating the wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7     G.S.

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© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Beyond sex politics is God's unconditional love for every human being. Until we learn and accept to love as God loves, we suffer and cause suffering, but God kindly remains with us in it.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------- There are facts and truths that "sexual libertarians" don't...