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the battleground for the hearts of men
One of the biggest battlegrounds for the hearts of men is pornography. The internet has contributed to this serious epidemic we could call "pornography addiction." There are millions of pornographic sites available within seconds by just a click of a button. We have come to realize that the majority of people started looking at hardcore pornography at a very young age. Some people do not even know that viewing pornography is immoral. Now is the time in your life to get serious about beginning the process of eliminating pornography from your life. If you've been looking at pornography a lot (once a week or more) chances are you'll need some help.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the following about pornography:
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." (CCC 2354) -
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What's the Harm?Church Teaching is opposed to pornography because its approach towards human sexuality is based solely on pleasure. Pleasure is not the purpose of sex just like pleasure is not the purpose of sleeping or eating. Pleasure is the motive or consequence of sex. The Catholic Church's teaching on human sexuality is based on Natural Law: if you want things to prosper you have to act in accord with nature. Why do we have sex? What is its purpose in the context of Marital love? To bring husband and wife closer together (unitive) and to bring babies into the world (procreative); therefore, the purpose is babies and bonding. Additionally viewing pornography is a violation of standard Catholic mores because one is taking advantage of the degraded morality of another person.
HOW CAN I GET HELP?
Getting help is simple and easy! Just send an email to [email protected] simply stating your interest in finding out more about the Millennium Men Project. You will then be contacted via email to set up a meeting that will work for your schedule. -
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Did You Know?
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¼ females will be sexually molested in her lifetime as a result of pornography.
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1 out of 3 girls and 1 out of six boys will be sexually assaulted as children by someone they know as a result of pornography.
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4,000 children are murdered per year due to sex crimes and pornography.
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11,000% increase in child rape since the introduction of pornography.
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Pornography is an addiction triggered by the hormone ACTH, which is proven to be more powerful to break than cocaine!
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The first decade after pornography was introduced (’60-’69), rape by males below the age of 18 years of age rose by 86%.
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90% of juvenile sex offenders said, pornography was their primary motive.
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In a survey done at random of 600 students below the age of 18, 91% of girls & 99% of boys had said they had looked at a pornographic magazine at least once.
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80% of boys and 40% of girls, below the age of 18, said they desired to try ‘stuff’ seen in a pornographic magazine.
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31% of boys and 18 % of girls, below the age of 18, admitted doing what they had seen in a pornographic magazine a few days after viewing it.
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Before 1950, 1% of men reported impotence; 20 years after the introduction of pornography, 40% of men reported impotence.
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Pornography uses cartoons to entice children and exploit the children. 22% of the cartoons used in pornographic magazines use children in the cartoons.
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An FBI study found that pornography was the # 1 common interest among all serial killers.
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Jeffrey Dahmer (who killed 17 boys), Gary Bishop (who killed 5 boys), and Ted Bundy (who killed 28 people) all stated that “soft-porn” was the leading factor that triggered their desire to violate the flesh!
Source: Soft Porn plays Hard Ball -
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healingUnchaste acts are very difficult to overcome if they have become a habit. Here are some thoughts on how they might be healed:
In Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus Caritas Est we read this:Eros, reduced to pure "sex," has become a commodity; a mere "thing" to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great "yes" to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body . . . as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. …True, eros tends to rise "in ecstasy" towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.
A. Unhealed sexual temptations enslaved to immediate and artificial consolation. It is a consolation that looks to relieve, through physical pleasure, a host of painful emotions (self-hate, loneliness, anger, fear, grief, boredom) that remain unrelated to the love that Christ has for you. The relief sought in masturbation only returns compounded sadness, and a horrifying habit of choosing more and more of what satisfies less and less. The consolation given by masturbation can never heal the pain that is causing you to choose this kind of action. If this habit is not healed, then the man enters a cycle of shame that increases in force. The healing occurs as our emotional wounds and pain are acknowledged (I am lonely, I hate myself, I am not lovable by others, etc) the lies are unveiled (you will always be alone, God is not real, sex is meaningless and hurts no one when engaged in before marriage, etc) and the light of Jesus' love reveals the Truth. This love that God has for you has to be received into your wounds so that this love can heal your habit of trying to find happiness and relief of pain in an ineffective way. Defining the struggle for chastity is often a deep pain that is at the root of inappropriate behavior, a pain that needs healing, not numbing.
B. In the man who masturbates there lies a distressing contradiction: he is attempting to reach end loneliness by being closed in upon the self. In the authentic sexual act a husband beholds his wife in love, faces her in self-giving, and is received by her in love. The man who masturbates faces no one. He gazes upon emptiness, or if the act is stimulated by pornography, he enters fantasy and thus conjures up a false "bride" who leads him only to depression.
C. Many men report a pattern of life that leads them to being vulnerable to masturbation. In this pattern a man may find that a certain time of day and the emotion that accompanies this time tempts him to unchaste acts (e.g., viewing pornography). Certain ordinary activities may tempt him, such as completing a work day or project, or reaching a deadline, after which he finds his affect is low ("Now what do I do?"). It is not always the obvious erotic seductions that enter the consciousness and lead a man to seek consolation in masturbation. As St. Ignatius of Loyola taught, the time to let grace heal temptation is at the very beginning of its emergence into consciousness, not after you have thought about the act for awhile. If one waits, the will is weakened.
D. To heal the habit of masturbation a man needs to be awake to his own interior thoughts and feelings so that he can follow the advice of Ignatius and stave off sin before its interior promptings overwhelm the will. It is good to take the counsel of Christ here, as He struggled against the temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane to avoid the cross. He said to his disciples, who were prone to sleep, "Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt 26:41)
E. Prayer, as difficult as it is to maintain as a commitment, is crucial for the healing of unchaste habits. Prayer is a life's commitment and not an ad hoc reality to be entered only in the face of temptation. Temptation dissipates in a man of prayer; in a man who makes time for prayer each day no matter if he feels like it or not.
F. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the promised place of forgiveness for all sexual sins. Along with this sacrament, the Eucharist is the promised place of healing for our sinfulness, for the roots of our particular sins.
G. The Mass is a source of healing for our sexual temptations because it is in fact the wedding of the Lamb (Rev 21). It is a marriage between heaven and earth, God and humanity, and so any temptations are taken up into the truth of what our sexual desires are for: becoming a husband to a wife. If you are vulnerable, if you he enter the Mass with a willingness to expose the truth of your own heart, then the Bridegroom will heal you to such a point that you will be able to love like Christ, selflessly.
H. Christ wants you receive His mercy, relate the truth of your own weaknesses to the strength of God’s love. The call to holiness bids us to live in this mystery—to hold nothing back from the heart of Christ and to resist turning from Him no matter how shameful or embarrassing our actions are.
I. Can it be possible that Jesus does not grow weary of my sins? We have all had this temptation at one time or another. "I have promised Him so much, I have made so many resolutions, and I always fall again; it is impossible that He does not get tired of it." It is a kind of blasphemy to say that, because it is to limit a mercy which has no limit. It is not He who grows weary of us; it is we who grow weary of looking at our ugliness.
J. Place your sexual temptations into the wounds of Christ; whatever these images are, however embarrassing or explicit, place them in His wounds. Press the images in your mind into the wounds. Imagine all of your sexual temptations being taken by Christ on the cross. Let Him have them. If you need to, if the temptation is very strong, hold a crucifix and place it against your heart until the emotions pass and you stand in peace with Christ's love. Christ's love is received when you share your truthful emotions, ideas, and images about sex with Him. If you keep the temptations to yourself and do not share them with Christ in prayer, Satan will keep you isolated from healing. In this way the desires will continue to hide within you, to visit you again at a later time of vulnerability.
K. Find the root emotions ("I feel rejected") for the thoughts that lead you to seek relief in unchaste acts, and instead relate these emotions to Christ in prayer. This is an ongoing movement, not a onetime act simply to be used at the time of temptation. Be patient with yourself, gentle. Violent self-hate or disappointment will only fuel stress and lead you to seek relief in sexual sin again.
L. To build the virtue of chastity, regularly enter a prayer that focuses upon the image of the Beloved Son. You are that son. Receive the love. Face God the Father and let Him love you. You can do this by prayerfully reading scripture, gazing upon an icon, imagining a conversation between you and God the Father wherein He displays His love for you in words or an embrace, a kind look, a smile. Most importantly go to Eucharistic Adoration as a way to let the face of God's love behold and heal you. The goal is to receive the truth that you are beheld in love by God. Let the Father have all of your explicit memories of loneliness and sexual desire. Relate them to Him, hold nothing back. Let Him heal your wounds of isolation upon the cross of Christ.
M. Share your sexual desires and needs with the Trinity ("I am lonely, I wish I could enjoy a life with a wife, I wish I could hold a woman") and also with Mary and Joseph. Joseph knows just how you feel. He wants to heal you and comfort you. Mary knows, too, because she understands the legitimate desire of a husband to embrace his wife, and yet she knows too the call from God for some men to refrain from that embrace for the sake of virtue. These saints are there for you. Receiving their love in prayer changes your affections, your desires, your mind. Let them love you in prayer.By Dr. James Keating
Here CS Lewis talks about what is wrong about masturbation:"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; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself…After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison."
-C.S. Lewis (Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis: Vol 3, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 758-59)