Helping Penitents Overcome Pornography Use Within the Sacrament of the Penance

Pornography is an epidemic. Social science data and the experiences of priests counseling parishioners reveal the ubiquity of pornography in our society. The accessibility, affordability, and anonymity of Internet pornography has exposed countless men, women, and children to the most prurient and deviant forms of sexually oriented material.¹ Worldwide the pornography industry is worth $97 billion. The “adult entertainment” industry in the United States earns $12 billion annually.² Pornography-related materials account for 35% of all Internet downloads.³ The largest pornography website, Pornhub, receives more traffic in the United States than Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Pinterest, and LinkedIn combined (Fight the New Drug, 2023). A 2017 study reported that 98% of men and 73% of women have viewed pornography in the past six months.⁴ The same study concluded that that 17% of participants had “compulsive” or “out-of-control” use of pornography.⁵ These statistics confirm the experiences of confessors. Priests who regularly hear confessions attest to pornography’s hold on many people in our society. The priest is often the only person to whom a compulsive pornography user can turn for help. The confessor is in a privileged place to assist penitents in overcoming pornography consumption.

Definition of Pornography

Articulating a definition of pornography is a difficult task. When the Supreme Court was asked to decide if the 1958 French film The Lovers was obscene, Justice Stewart famously declared that he could not “succeed” in devising a correct definition of obscenity. “But I know it,” Stewart wrote, “when I see it.”⁶ Stewart is not alone in his difficulty of defining “pornography.” What one person considers “art” may be regarded as “pornography” by another person. Many works of art contain graphic nudity and depictions of sexual activity. Thus, coming up with a precise and widely accepted definition of pornography is challenging.⁷ Are popular shows that depict graphic sex scenes and frequent nudity, such as Rome or Game of Thrones, pornographic? Are works of literature such as Lolita or The Decameron pornography?

The Meese Commission — which studied the legal, social, and political aspects of pornography — noted its difficulty in articulating a precise definition of “pornography.” The Commission, while noting the incompleteness of its definition, described pornography as a depiction of sexual activity that has two characteristics (1) sexual explicitness which has the (2) intention to be sexually arousing.⁸ The Catechism’s definition of pornography focuses on the removal of intimacy from the sexual act to display it to third parties (CCC §2354). The Church sees the primary distinguishing trait of pornography as the separation of sexual activity from intimacy and love. Regardless of how one defines pornography, the fact remains that many people are compulsive consumers of sexually explicit material.

Catholic Church’s Condemnation of Pornography

The Church teaches that the production, distribution, and consumption of pornography is gravely sinful. The Catechism lists three reasons why pornography is sinful. First, pornography “offends against chastity” because it separates intimacy from the sexual act. Secondly, obscene works are gravely offensive to the dignity of the human person. Pornography wounds the dignity of everyone who is involved: consumers, producers, and actors. It makes the actors objects of the consumer’s pleasure and a means of illicit profit for the producers. Pornography debases its consumers by enslaving them in lust. Thirdly, pornography creates a fantasy world for its consumers that makes intimacy with real people more difficult to attain (CCC §1997, §2354).

The Priest’s Role in the Sacrament of the Penance

Catholics who consume pornography are often racked by guilt because it violates their fundamental values. The confessor celebrating the sacrament of penance is a mediator and instrument of God’s mercy. A priest within the sacrament of confession is simultaneously a representative of Christ, the Church, and humanity. The priest represents Christ by standing in his place. It is Christ who grants the forgiveness of sins through the instrumentality of the priest. The priest represents the Church. He is an ordained minister of the Church who receives his authorization (faculties) to hear confessions from the local ordinary. Finally, as another human person the priest represents humanity. He is a person to whom the penitent may confidently confide in because of the seal of confession. Thus, the priest is a representative of all three parties who are offended by grave sin: God, the Church, and humanity.

St. Alphonsus Liguori, who wrote extensively about the priest’s role in the sacrament of penance, described the confessor’s four identities: father, teacher, physician, and judge.⁹ As a father, the confessor takes joy in welcoming his children back to the God’s house. Like the Father in the Parable of Prodigal Son, the priest warmly receives the sinner back into the Church. The confessor as a teacher imparts knowledge to penitents about the moral life and advises him or her on practical ways to avoid sin in the future. The priest eases a scrupulous conscience by accurately articulately the Church’s teaching. He instructs the confused or ignorant about the Church’s moral teachings. The priest is a doctor who helps penitents overcome the spiritual illnesses that ail them. Like a physician, the priest prescribes the necessary remedies to help the penitent recover his/her moral and spiritual health. Finally, the confessor serves a merciful and loving judge who assesses the spiritual and moral state of the penitent and determines his/her contrition and firm purpose of amendment.¹⁰ These roles as father, teacher, physician, and judge play a vital role in helping a penitent who suffers from compulsive use of internet pornography.

Use of Supernatural and Natural Means

The priest must recommend both spiritual and natural remedies to the penitent who is addicted to pornography. The Thomistic adage “gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit” is most especially applicable in the case of penitent’s who suffer from compulsive pornography use. Pornography wounds the spiritual, psychological, relational, and physical aspects of the human person.¹¹ The counsel that a priest prescribes for the penitent must employ both spiritual and natural means to help him or her overcome this vicious habit.

Supernatural Means

The Church has many tools to support penitents who suffer from the compulsive use of pornography. The remedies prescribed for pornography use in the confessional must take account of the penitent’s age, vocational status, sex, and spiritual condition. The priest must be a patient father who recognizes that the road to virtue is often difficult, filled with obstacles, and beset with many falls. The first — and perhaps the most important — thing that the priest does within sacramental confession is to instill hope in the penitent. Regardless of how profound the wound and numerous the transgressions, the priest must encourage the penitent not to give up hope. Many penitents who suffer from pornography are racked with guilt. They have resolved many times not to consume pornography and have fallen just as many times. These repeated setbacks instill a sense of despair in the penitent, causing him/her to feel unforgivable. If the priest does nothing else in the confessional, he must inspire a sense of hope in the penitent. Jesus, by his Death, Passion, and Resurrection, has definitively conquered sin and death. To instill hope in the penitent, the priest should remind the penitent of God’s mercy and invite him/her to reflect on those times in which he was able to overcome sinful habits. By approaching the sacrament, the penitent is already implicitly expressing his/her hope in God’s forgiveness and transformative power.

Without exception, the penitent should be urged to maintain a routine of prayer. Prayer restores our communion with God and focuses our hearts and minds on that which good, true, and holy. Pornography, like all mortal sin, cuts us off from communion with God and the Church. Prayer restores this lost communion. A regular prayer life counters the corruption of the mind caused by repeated pornography consumption by inviting the penitent to focus on the life of Jesus and Mary. To this end, the rosary and lectio divina are powerful weapons in the fight against compulsive pornography use. Both forms of prayer are contemplative in nature. They redirect the intellect to images of God. By engaging in these contemplative forms of prayer, the penitent is gradually restructuring his cognitions and memories away from pornographic images to those of God.

The second supernatural aid to help penitents suffering from compulsive use of pornography are acts of penance. Penance are acts that the repentant sinner performs to show detestation of his/her own sins and the need to make reparation for them.¹² Penance is primarily an interior disposition. External acts such as prayer, fasting, and almsgiving manifest the sinner’s conversion of heart. The various practices of penance may consist of “prayer, an offering, works of mercy, service of neighbor, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear” (CCC §1460). These acts of penance help us to repair the damage that sin has caused in our lives. They are particularly necessary for Catholics who suffer from compulsive pornography use. Pornography is inherently isolating. It fosters self-absorption and the pursuit of immediate self-gratification. Performing acts of penance draws us outside of ourselves by forcing us to consider the needs of others and tending to their concerns. The inconveniences and hardships that penance imposes counter the need for immediate self-gratification. Penitents who suffer from compulsive pornography should be urged to perform works of charity for those in need, particularly members of their own families or circle of friends. These acts of charity unravel the accumulated years of selfishness and self-absorption brought about by repeated pornography consumption.

Thirdly, the confessor should encourage the penitent to detest the sin of pornography. Detestation of sin is necessary for conversion. In the case of pornography, anyone who is approaching the sacrament of penance already detests his/her sin to a certain degree. The penitent may dislike how pornography induces guilt and strains his/her relationships. He or she may regret the time wasted while using pornography. The penitent may deplore pornography’s isolating effects and sense of loneliness that he/she experiences after viewing it. To regret the negative consequences of sin is a first and necessary beginning to detesting the sin of pornography. True hatred of the sin must ultimately arise because of pornography’s defilement of image of God. The confessor can help the penitent realize that the actors are not animated characters, but are real people endowed with a supernatural destiny. Pornography contributes to many crimes including funding organized crime and drug cartels, the exploitation of women and children, and human trafficking. By consuming pornography, the penitent is contributing to these grave violations against human dignity. Educating the penitent about the dignity of the human person will help him/her overcome this vice.

Finally, the priest can recommend that the penitent take part in a spiritual renewal program such as Exodus 90 (for men) or Fiat 90 (for women). These programs use several powerful weapons in the arsenal against pornography. Exodus 90 combines the insights of the social sciences with traditional Catholic practices. It is a ninety-day spiritual renewal program for men resting on three pillars: prayer, asceticism, and community.¹³ The program is quite rigorous. The prayer part of Exodus 90 requires participants to make a weekly holy hour, pray silently for twenty minutes a day, read a passage from Scripture a day, make a daily examination of conscience, and truly treat Sunday as the “Lord’s Day.” The asceticism part of the program is no less intense. The program encourages men to take cold showers and abstain from meat on Fridays. These two pillars are supported by a small, close-knit fraternity of men who encourage each other. While Exodus 90 and its female counterpart are not specifically founded to address compulsive pornography use, its emphasis on prayer helps to restore the sinner’s communion with God and provides him a basic routine of prayer to rebuild his spiritual life. The program’s ascetical emphasis helps to strengthen the man against the temptation. Finally, the fraternity component of the program reduces the self-isolation of pornography and provides the man with a solid support system for the future.

Natural Means

The natural means to overcome pornography can be employed by both Christians and non-believers. While the supernatural means rely upon the grace of God, the natural means depend upon eliminating the sources of temptation and the formation of groups to help men and women overcome their pornography use. For Catholics, these steps should be taken in conjunction with spiritual aids to stop pornography consumption. These programs aid the supernatural means described above by helping the penitent to grow in natural virtues, overcome psychological pathologies that lead to pornography use, and reduce sources of temptation.

The first natural means for overcoming pornography use are peer support groups. These groups utilize the 12-step model of Alcoholics Anonymous. The most widely known group of this kind is Sexaholics Anonymous (S.A.). It seeks to help participants to be “sexually sober.” Sexual sobriety is defined as for the “married sexaholic [as] having no form of sex with self or with persons other than the spouse. In SA’s sobriety definition, the term “spouse” refers to one’s partner in a marriage between a man and a woman. For the unmarried sexaholic, sexual sobriety means freedom from sex of any kind. And for all of us, single and married alike, sexual sobriety also includes progressive victory over lust.¹⁴ S.A.’s definition of sexual sobriety accords with the Catholic understanding of the virtue of chastity. The program offers a structured system that relies upon community to help sex addicts (including those who are compulsive users of pornography) achieve “sexual sobriety.” The twelve-step programs are based on Ignatian spirituality and employ many traditional Catholic practices an making a daily examination of conscience and confession of faults.¹⁵

The second natural means that the confessor can recommend to the penitent is to limit his/her access to pornography using electronic means. Pornography has proliferated in the past decades because of its availability on the Internet. There are two ways that one can limit his/her access to pornography on computers and mobile devices. The first way is to encourage the penitent to install Internet filtering software on his/her devices. These programs block pornography, violent content, and gambling websites from one’s web browser. These software programs can also monitor a person’s internet usage and limit the amount of time that one spends online. Filtering software programs are readily available and affordable. They are essential for anyone who is striving to live a pornography free life. They prevent the deliberate and inadvertent downloading of pornographic material over the Internet and apps. Accountability software programs are also a means to gain mastery over pornography. Covenant Eyes is the most used accountability software.¹⁶ These programs enable the user to designate an “accountability partner” who has access to his/her browsing history. The partner is charged with encouraging the person in his/her pursuit to live pornography free and works with him/her to prevent any falls on the road to chastity. Few studies have measured the effectiveness of filtering software in assisting adults to overcome compulsive pornography use. Their use is not without controversy. Critics claim these programs block innocent content while allowing pornographic content to remain unfiltered. Internet filter software and accountability programs to combat pornography use are tools and are not sufficient in themselves to stop the compulsive use of Internet pornography.

The adage claims, “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.” The penitent should be encouraged to avoid idleness. Surfing the Internet is an inherently passive activity. The Internet’s passivity promotes idleness. The medium lends itself to excessive consumption by enticing the user to click the next link or to view another short video. When a person struggles with pornography use, the Internet can be an occasion of sin. To promote the healthy use of the Internet and to prevent it from being a proximate occasion of sin, the priest can recommend three strategies. First, the penitent should be recommended to use the Internet for specific purposes (paying bills, checking sports scores, or reading the news). Once the penitent has achieved the purposes for which he originally began using the Internet, he/she should be urged to discontinue surfing and engage in another activity. Secondly, the penitent should avoid the Internet when he/she feels particularly vulnerable or tempted to access pornography. Addiction specialists identify a common group of triggers, which are remembered by the acronym HALT. These triggers are hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness.¹⁷ The penitent should be recommended not to use the Internet except for essential business when he/she feels vulnerable or tempted.

These natural means help to instill discipline in one’s use of the Internet. They form virtuous habits that help the penitent resist temptation. These practices combined with supernatural aids are powerful weapons in the penitent’s fight against pornography consumption.

Conclusion

Saint Paul writes, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rm. 5:20, RSV). The proliferation of pornography creates many pastoral problems for priests. Parishioners are struggling with compulsive use of pornography at much greater rates than any other time in human history. Nearly universal availability to the Internet gives people access to the most prurient and perverted materials known to man. It also provides priests an opportunity within the privileged confines of the confessional the opportunity to inculcate virtue in penitents by providing them with the necessary aids to combat the pandemic of pornography.