Monsignor Stephen Rossetti of the Archdiocese of Washington warned about the spiritual dangers of pornography in an email interview Wednesday, calling it ‘an opening to the demonic.’
“A pornography addiction, like any serious sin, is an opening to the demonic,” Rossetti told Catholic News Agency (CNA), according to the National Catholic Register (NCR). “It is never a good thing to exploit people as sexual objects, which the porn industry does,” Rossetti continued. “A porn habit can be an open door to escalating sexual dysfunction.”
Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington, said that a porn addiction puts one in grave spiritual danger. https://t.co/RQaBlWM2tX
— Catholic World Report (@cworldreport) December 2, 2022
Rossetti, 71, has been an exorcist for over 15 years for the Archdiocese in addition to working 30 years a a licensed psychologist, according to NCR. (RELATED: REPORT: Exorcism At Bible Camp Leaves Child Twitching And Bleeding)
Pope Francis echoed a similar warning on Oct. 24 about the dangers of digital pornography to seminarians studying in Rome, CNA reported.
“The devil enters from there. It weakens the priestly heart,” the Holy Father said, according to the report. “And if from your cell phone you can delete this, delete it, so you won’t have temptation at hand. 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.”
In November, Father Hermann Backhaus from the Diocese of Münster, Germany, seemed to contradict the pope’s remarks, in an interview, according to CNA.
“There are positive effects of explicit sexuality in relation to the couple,” Backhaus said, according to CNA. “The consumption of explicit sexual representations can have a relieving effect, it can’t be denied.”
A priest of the Diocese of Münster, Father Hermann Backhaus, said he also considers it a “very strong” statement to associate the devil with pornography, as Pope Francis did at a meeting with seminarians in Rome last month. https://t.co/zATlQkMme8
— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) November 16, 2022
Backhaus also downplayed the relation of pornography to the demonic calling it a “spiritual exaggeration,” the report continues.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that pornography “does grave injury to the dignity of its participants … 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.”