VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis I, global head of the Catholic Church, warned his clergy on Monday against the “temptation of digital pornography” and ordered them to delete it from their cell phones.
Francis — the papacy name of 85-year-old Argentine bishop Jorge Bergoglio — spoke to a gathering of hundreds of seminarians (aspiring priests), instructing them that “digital pornography weakens the soul and the priestly heart.”
“Dear brothers,” the theocratic monarch who rules over Vatican City told the young men gathered for his guidance in Paul VI Hall, “be careful of this. The pure heart, the heart that receives Jesus every day, cannot receive this pornographic information.”
Francis then instructed his clergy to delete “pornographic information” from their electronic devices.
“And if from your cell phone you can delete this, delete it, so you won’t have temptation at hand,” he admonished the young men. “And if you can’t delete it, protect yourself properly so you don’t have access to this. I tell you, it weakens the soul.”
Francis then expressed his concern that “digital pornography” is “a vice that so many people have — so many lay men, so many lay women, and even priests and religious sisters.”
He felt the need to clarify that he was not just talking about “criminal pornography, like child abuse,” but legal “‘normal’ pornography.”
Francis did not provide any evidence of the number of priests and nuns that are supposedly addicted to digital pornography, or what in his opinion — which holds maximum authority for Catholics around the world — constitutes “normal pornography.”
Pope: Satan ‘Enters’ Priests and Nuns Through Porn
Francis, who has repeatedly instructed his Church in this century that Satan is not a metaphor or a concept but an actual being, told the young aspiring priests that “the devil enters [them] from there,” supposedly referring to “digital pornography” including “normal pornography.”
“It weakens the priestly heart,” the pope repeated.
According to Catholic News Agency, the Catechism (official doctrine manual) of the Catholic Church describes pornography as “a grave offense” that “immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world,” injures the dignity of its participants, and “perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other.”
Catholic News Agency Endorses Evangelical ‘Porn Filter’ Surveillance Apps
Courtney Mares, the Catholic News Agency writer who reported the story, added to the news item an overt endorsement for several “porn filter” surveillance apps.
“Many Catholic ministries,” Mares wrote without providing more details, “have been founded to help people struggling with addiction to pornography, including Integrity Restored, Strive: 21-Day Porn Detox, Reclaim Sexual Health, Covenant Eyes, and the Victory App.”
Covenant Eyes, however, is not “a Catholic ministry.” As XBIZ reported, Covenant Eyes is the brainchild of evangelical activist Ron DeHaas, offering what they call “accountability software” from a small office in Owosso, Michigan, somewhere in the economically ravaged expanse between Flint and Lansing.
Last month, Wired’s Security section reporter Dhruv Mehrotra exposed how “accountability software” niche firms Covenant Eyes and Accountable2You spied on churchgoers searches and then sent the information to religious leaders.
The two apps, Mehrotra wrote, are “part of a multimillion-dollar ecosystem of so-called accountability apps that are marketed to both churches and parents as tools to police online activity. For a monthly fee, some of these apps monitor everything their users see and do on their devices, even taking screenshots (at least one per minute, in the case of Covenant Eyes) and eavesdropping on web traffic.”
These church-endorsed and -marketed apps “then report a feed of all of the users’ online activity directly to a chaperone — an ‘accountability partner,’ in the apps’ parlance.”
After Wired presented its findings to Google, the search giant determined that Covenant Eyes and Accountable2You violated its privacy policies.
DeHaas also chairs the board of directors of NCOSE, the leading U.S. religiously motivated anti-porn and pro-censorship lobby.
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