The Secret Addiction that can lead to possession

This article has been published by the Remnant Newspaper Saturday, August 31, 2024. See here for the original.

“The stench of impurity before God and the angels is so great, that no stench in the world can equal it.” - St. Philip Neri

Did you know that in 2021, porn sites received more website traffic in the U.S. than Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Pinterest, and LinkedIn combined!?

The scourge of pornography is a serious issue that needs to be confronted and addressed if we want to move forward in raising strong families for Christ.

I know a man who runs a ministry that helps other men conquer addictions (drug, alcohol, and porn), and there are many Catholic men who have given their testimony about their struggle with (and ultimately their victory over) porn. As the saying goes, "but for the grace of God, there go I." Many of these men are Catholics, married, with children, and while thankfully they were able to overcome their addictions, their witness is a good warning for all of us that we are not immune to this plague just because we are Catholic. 

While this addiction is sometimes thought of as a "private" sin, nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, no sin is truly private. Secondly, the havoc that porn wreaks on a person always has an impact on the people around them as well. Overall, we can actually see the effects on society and the family that have come about because of the evil of pornography.

If we want to live out the true Faith and rebel against the modern age, we must strive to be pure. If we allow impurity to pollute our senses and our souls, then we will not be strong enough to resist the world. While there is hope for those who have succumbed to this particular vice, it is important that we take this problem very seriously.

A Pandemic of Filth

According to a nationally representative survey of teens in the U.S., 84% of 14 to 18-year-old boys and 57% of 14 to 18-year-old girls have viewed pornography. A 2020 study found that the majority of 11 to 13-year-olds have already been exposed to porn, with some being exposed as early as 7 years old. That same 2020 study found that 75% of parents believed their child had never encountered porn. However, in reality, 53% of those parents’ children reported that they had seen porn.

One 2023 study found that nearly 3 in 4 teens had been exposed to pornography. More than half indicated that they had encountered pornography accidentally, and of those who encountered it accidentally, 63 percent had been exposed in the last week, suggesting that this is a common experience. While many parents may feel some comfort in using "porn blockers" on their children's devices, these, unfortunately, do not block porn from apps. "When a child can get to PornHub in five clicks inside Snapchat, all without leaving the app, such filters become meaningless." Anyone can access some form of adult content on most sites; sometimes it isn't blocked because it is labeled as "educational," like on Wikipedia, or most of the time, it is simply what people are posting on social media and sites like Reddit and Twitter.  Comment sections can also be places where porn bots post links and gross comments. It is impossible to block all adult content, and the sooner parents realize this, the better.

While ignoring the problem of porn may seem appealing to those unaffected, it won't protect us or our children.

Frightening Consequences

The statistics on regular porn consumption are staggering, but the consequences of such usage are even more alarming.

"In 2022, the adult online content market in the United States was estimated to have a value of almost 977 million U.S. dollars. In 2023, the pornographic website market in the U.S. is projected to surpass one billion U.S. dollars in value, with an annualized market growth of 12.6 percent. By 2023, the online porn market in the country is estimated to experience a growth of approximately 58 percent compared to 2018." Globally, the revenue of the porn industry is $100 billion (with a B).This ties in directly to the global sex trafficking crisis that we have today. (If you have not yet watched the film, "The Sound of Freedom" I highly suggest you do!) There are over 2 million children and infants that are circulated every year in the sex trafficking business, which is fueled by pornography. Sex trafficking is itself a $150 billion dollar industry and is the most common type of trafficking in the U.S., with child sex trafficking reported in all 50 states!  While the average age of exploitation is 12-15 years old, children as young as 3 months old have been sold in the United States!

This diabolical abuse of children is rarely talked about, but the staggering numbers show that it is happening right under our noses. While abortion is the Satanic sacrifice of the most innocent unborn children, pornography has also made infants and children direct targets for the most brutal and diabolical abuse as well. This abuse is not only happening to the children inside the trafficking industry, either. Because of the easy access to porn, much of it very violent, children are now abusing other children after being exposed to this sort of garbage. Clare Morell writes, "This exposure is having negative effects on children’s lives in the real world. Nurses, doctors, teachers and principals are seeing children imitating and acting out on others the mature content they have consumed online. Emergency room nurses are increasingly seeing peer-to-peer child sexual abuse, often in instances where 11, 12 and 14-year-old boys are committing violent sexual assaults on 4- to 8-year-old girls. This shouldn’t surprise us; children have unique mirror neurons, meaning that they are especially prone to imitate what they see on the screen." Morell concludes, "The court should recognize the ineffectiveness of filters and the vast changes in technology over the last 20 years that have negatively made pornography more accessible than ever to children and also positively made age-verification methods anonymous and quick so they now place very little burden on adults."

Another frightening consequence of porn that we can see is the effect it has had on many serial killers. Many prolific serial killers, including Bundy, Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, and John Wayne Gacy professed to porn addiction. Ted Bundy, a well known serial killer who was executed in 1989, stated “I’ve lived in prison for a long time now and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence just like me and without exception, every one of them was … deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography.” He even claims that "The FBI’s own study on serial homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography."

There is significant scientific data that shows actual re-wiring of the brain from watching porn, its very damaging effects on relationships and friendships, and its drug-like effect on its users. An example of this is what is called, "Supernormal stimulis. It "refers to an exaggerated (i.e. “super”) version, or amount, of a “normal” thing, and was coined by a researcher named Nikolaas Tinbergen. In his most famous experiment, Tinbergen tested whether overwhelming a specific stimulus could change behavior. He created cardboard constructions of butterflies attracted to their mates by color and movement. He then painted these cardboard butterflies with more intense colorings and designed the cutouts to move more regularly. When male butterflies were introduced to the cardboard, they did indeed try to mate with the fakes. Even with actual female butterflies introduced to the same area, the male butterflies continued to ignore them. They continued to prefer the intensely colored, regular-moving cardboard butterflies, even with living, breathing females close by.... Just like the butterflies, if something artificially overwhelms one of these stimuli consistently, our expectations will change. It isn’t just that our brains prefer the supernormal stimulus; they can change themselves to expect it, and the old normal stimulus (also known as “real life”) suddenly seems less attractive by comparison." (from, "How Porn Can Change the Brain," Fightthenewdrug.com)

That is just one example of how porn is terrible for you. There is so much scientific evidence and data concerning the damage that porn causes, but it would be too lengthy to mention them all here. All of this can be reversed, however, with a strong prayer life and the will to stop participating in such debauchery. There are many stories of people who have been able to quit porn because of their devotion to the Rosary for example.

I must mention another frightening reality... Exorcists have warned that porn use opens the door to the demonic.

Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington said, “A pornography addiction, like any serious sin, is an opening to the demonic... A pornography addiction can destroy marriages. A porn addiction can distort a person’s sexuality... A pornography addiction not only seriously harms the user, it supports a billion-dollar industry that exploits people, especially women and children."

A priest who is one of four Britons to attend an exorcism course in Rome said that most Catholic dioceses in England now have an official exorcist, whereas only half had one just five years ago. He explained that part of the reason for this increasing demand is the rise in the consumption of pornography and drugs in modern society.

'Porn and drugs are addictions which can allow an evil spirit to enter...' he said."

Fr. Chad Ripperger stated in one of his talks, "One of the things a lot of people don’t know is that the Satanists taught the people in the pornography industry because they can curse the master copy, sometimes called the locked copy of the pornography. All the copies made from that bear the curse, so the people who view it become subject to the curse. And the principal aim of them becoming subject to the curse is to boost the addictive effect of the pornography. I know an exorcist who has dealt with a guy who became possessed through pornography."

Fathers Vincent Lampert and Gary Thomas, two of America's most active exorcists, also spoke about the rise of porn addiction as being one of the factors in the shocking rise of exorcisms.

Remedies

It seems that we can legitimately say that we are living in such a time as Our Lady of Good Success spoke of; "[T]he spirit of impurity that will saturate the atmosphere in those times. Like a filthy ocean, it will inundate the streets, squares, and public places with an astonishing liberty... Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women."

But of course, we must have hope. We Catholics must take this plague of impurity seriously. While we should not be surprised at our fallen human nature, we should be aware of its dangers, avoid the near occasion of sin, and do our best to live a serious prayer life. We must hold on to Christ in the Eucharist and Mother Mary. As St. Philip Neri is quoted to have said in the book "Jesus, Our Eucharistic Love", “Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and devotion to the Blessed Virgin are not simply the best way, but in fact the only way to keep purity. At the age of twenty nothing but Communion can keep one’s heart pure . . . Chastity is not possible without the Eucharist.”

Going to Confession regularly, attending Mass as often as possible, along with the daily recitation of the Rosary (try saying the whole 15 decades!) and a devotion to Our Lady will be a huge step forward in our battle for purity.

Anyone looking for resources concerning this topic should check out Matt Fradd. He has great talks and a free course (Strive21) to help one overcome addiction to porn. The website, "Fight the New Drug," is also a good site for resources, even though they are not religious. Integrity Restored is another good Catholic resource, as well as purity talks by Gabriel Castillo. There is also an interesting retreat for men called the Martyrs Walk, which is best described as an "Ignatian retreat meets Military Bootcamp." While it is not for the faint of heart, it could be a great help for some men to overcome particular vices that they are struggling with.

I would also recommend the use of the sacramentals which Holy Mother Church has given us as weapons in the spiritual warfare we face. The scapular, the Miraculous Medal, the St. Benedict medal, holy water and other such spiritual aids.

Cultivating a devotion to Our Lady is a must, but one can also devote themselves to any additional saint such as St. Mary of Egpyt, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Philomena, St. Maria Goretti, St. Dominic Savio, St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. Agnes... there are many holy helpers to whom we can call to our aid!

Perhaps a good practice would be to cultivate beauty and promote innocence in our lives and homes. If we carve out the ugliness and darkness out of our homes and our lifestyles and replace it with beauty, we can then begin to reform our own hearts and minds to that of God. Just as it should be.

Finally, we should not become overwhelmed in this dark and evil world we are currently living in. God has made us for these times and will not leave us abandoned. While we are called to pick up our daily cross and battle with our fallen tendencies, we can also have faith that if we continue to return to God and beg Him for healing, He will indeed hear our prayer.

"You can then expect great things from (Mary's) generosity. She is our Mother and our friend. She is the empress of the universe and loves us more than all the mothers and queens of the world have ever loved any one human being, for, as St. Augustine says, the charity of the Blessed Virgin far surpasses the natural love of all mankind and even of all the angels." St. Louis de Montfort, "The Secret of the Rosary," #53