Pornography

What does the Church say about it, and about not being able to stop?

That it is a grave sin, and that being unable to stop can lessen the guilt without making the habit harmless. Pornography “consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties”. It injures everyone involved — “actors, vendors, the public” — since “each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others”, and it “immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world”. The Catechism calls it “a grave offense”, and asks civil authorities to prevent its production and distribution. CCC 2354

On not being able to stop, the Church distinguishes the act from the person’s guilt. Responsibility “can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors”. CCC 1735 Writing of masturbation, the Catechism names “affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety” as things that “lessen or even extenuate moral culpability”. CCC 2352 A 1975 declaration adds the other side: in general “the absence of serious responsibility must not be presumed”, and what matters is “whether the individual is using the necessary means, both natural and supernatural” for overcoming the passions. Persona Humana

Those means are ordinary: “self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God’s commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer”. CCC 2340 The Catechism does not expect the struggle to be won at once. “Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all.” CCC 2342 Chastity grows “through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin”. CCC 2343

Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.

Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona humana 9. "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved." CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona humana 9. To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability.

Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity." St. Augustine, Conf. 10, 29, 40: PL — Patrologia Latina (Migne).

Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life. Cf. Titus 2:1-6. The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.

Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. "Man . . . day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth." FC 34.

Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.

Persona Humana Dec 29, 1975

That it is a grave sin, and that being unable to stop can lessen the guilt without making the habit harmless. Pornography “consists in removing real or…”

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