Did I read this right? Nuns and priests watch porn? Internet porn. Say what now? So, says their man in the know, the Pope himself. I can’t Adam and Eve it! So, here’s the Pontiff…anyway, how does he know? Did the Vatican carry out a survey of nuns and priests asking them how they spend their leisure time? When not on bended knees in fervent prayer? And they replied, “Watching porn, me lord.”
I want to laugh at this preposterousity, but this is no laughing matter. By the way, doesn’t pornography fall into the ‘sexual sin’ category of the Christian denomination? So, what the hell are these priests and nuns doing by engaging in it and declaring it, joyfully? They are not even hiding it! And they are not sneaking off in the dead of night, behind the proverbial bike shed, to engage in this deed. No! It’s with them all the time. On their phone. On their person!
But the Pontiff has a way of popesplaining this. According to him, pornography is a vice shared by many members of the church (I hope he is not including my elderly Auntie Mabel in this!); he makes it sound like Mass and Communion! He goes on to say, many laymen, and many laywomen engage in this activity. Maybe. But they are not priests or nuns, are they? You can’t lump together the behaviour of those in the pew and those in the pulpit; those in the pulpit who are learned in the scriptures and Christian conduct, who are supposed to be leading by example. The way the Pope just casually explains this away is gobsmacking. It’s a little normal, pornography that is, he goes on to say, and presumably because there’s no abuse of children involved. But I think the Pope, head of the millions of Catholics around the world, (trying to do their Christian best) is missing something here. Because according to article 2354 of the Catechism, sexual imagery – pornography – is an ‘offence against chastity’. There you go. Nuns and priests are supposed to be chaste. So, there is no ‘normalising’ this.
And, just as shocking, in 2020, Pope Francis’s own Instagram account apparently ‘liked’ a racy photo of Brazilian model Natalia Garibotto. What is going on in the Vatican? Anyway, what I want to know is, if someone, some poor old ‘sinner’ goes to confession and tells the priest that he has sinned by watching internet porn, what does the priest say? “Bless you my son, go in peace, we’re all at it!”?’
Heaven help us!
