First, I’m not one who imagines things can’t get any worse. If you think it’s terrible now? Can’t take much more, it can’t continue as it is, and the degradation, the sin, the rise of evil can’t go on and be any more terrible than it has been and is? Just wait.

It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get a whole lot worse.

Why do you think the Lord Jesus Christ said and asked;

And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Luke 18:6-8 — English Standard Version

Faithfulness, true faithfulness, obedience to God, to Christ, to the Holy Spirit, and to the Word of God is not only waning in every Western nation — it is vanishing. Becoming something else while still retaining the name, the words “Christian” or “Christianity.”

RELATED: Why Americans are leaving their churches

You may sit and be smug in the details of the following perhaps saying inwardly, Well, it’s the Church of Rome after all, what can we expect? Nearly Two-Thirds of Christian Men View Porn Monthly; They Are Watching It at Same Rate as Secular Men, Says Study

That is one of the multiple sources saying the same thing. The overwhelming majority of professed Christians are viewing pornography at least once a month. The same as nonbelievers. So, who really believes? WHO REALLY BELIEVES? For if we did we would submit, obey, discern wisely and live to serve the Lord. Not ourselves, not our fleshly desires, our carnal lusts. That is why God ordained and created the institution of marriage. Among a man and a woman. To seek and to find and satiate every desire in your wife, in your husband seeking no other, going to no other. Men to find every satisfaction and delight in the breasts of their wives [see Proverbs 5:19, Song of Solomon 8:10, Song of Solomon 1:13, and Song of Solomon 7:7-8]. God is not anti-sex. God CREATED sex! Between a man and a woman. A married man to that wife he married and for a woman with the man she married. Sex among husband and wife is not dirty. Outside of marriage though it is a grave sin. And while many attempt to justify pornography do they really believe they are fooling God Who sees all and knows all? That what they do is harmless and not a sin? Really? Come on! How about some reality and truth folks!?

I’ve had trouble with lust. As every person has. Not only in the manner most first imagine. Lust for things of this world. Thinking they would bring comfort, joy, happiness, and satisfaction. Know what I did? I took it to the Lord in prayer. Not once, not a few times. Everything. To the Lord in prayer. As frequently, and sincerely as needed in order to have the power of the Spirit of God to work in me to overcome. I repented. I turned to and trusted the Lord. When temptation comes — and it will, it always will as long as we’re in this fleshly realm — the first and most important thing for any of us to do is to go to the Lord. In fervent, humble, and faithful prayer. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit can and will heal all things, and conquer all things. But first, we must go to the Triune God in faith, in submission, and in repentance. Be it the lust for money, position, a person, a place — anything and everything of this world that gets between God and us. And from survey upon survey and the admission of over 6 out of 10 professing to be Christian they have permitted pornography to overcome them and get between them and God. Even though they would most likely deny this truth and contend what they do is fine, without a victim, harmless, necessary, and they have Christian liberty to conduct themselves in such a sinful manner.

How can men and women who profess they understand why the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, though blameless and without sin took our sin upon Him and was murdered — by ALL OF US — and He conquered death revealing the promise of God of eternal life, and now those professing to believe, to understand, to have the Lord in them go to and seek out the abomination of pornography on a regular basis!? The equation does not add up. Someone is lying. And it certainly is NOT God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, or anything contained within the Scriptures! So, who could it possibly be telling porkies about their being born anew and renewed of mind and spirit to serve the Lord, to be His disciple? Are we walking and living to become mature disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, or just giving lip service, showing up at a church on a Sunday and not really knowing what it means to be converted, to be regenerated, transformed by the Supernatural power of the Spirit of God!?

Are our priorities the things of this world, the things of the flesh as are so clearly written about in the Bible and easy enough for a child to understand, or the eternal things of God? The spiritual things or the temporal carnal things? We are always at war within but we cannot permit the enemy to conquer us. We must turn to and trust the Lord to assist us, and help us in conquering the Enemy.

Lust can be overcome. Sin can be mortified — killed off. Certain desires, wants, and cravings can be removed. All things are possible with, by, and through faithfulness and obedience to God.

Wake up and smell the rot, the deception, the decay, the lies, the sin that pervades the Church — big C — universal Church in these times. We may not like to look, to hear, to smell it. We may want to figuratively hike around in a field of lovely blooming flowers on a sunny summer day refusing to look, to hear, to inhale the stench present among us. But we’ve only arrived where we are through our avoidance. Our refusing to face reality, the truth, and to act. To contend for the faith as we ought to as professed lights unto the world, as brothers and sisters in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ — no one an island, no one to remain silent and ignore sin when witnessed among the professed faithful.

That is according to Scripture.

That has been and is also avoided and not obeyed.

We live in the age of anything goes. Outside the church. Within the church.

The proof is all around us.

Put some lovely flowers in a nice vase and be sure to take in their wonderfulness, their sweet fragrance when you walk into and through the room they are placed — but leave the fields of delusion and illusion and renew the commitment to the Lord, put on the full armour of God and be enjoined in the battle, the war of all wars, the spiritual war with most of it now being waged WITHIN the Church! Not placing loyalty to any denomination, pastor, Christian writer, or church — rather placing unwavering loyalty to God as Father, the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, Friend, Lord of lords and King of kings, the Holy Spirit and every word within the Word of God rather than the words of man.

The following is not a sin confined to the Church of Rome or its priests. The sin of pornography is pervasive throughout the professed Christian Church.

It’s time to mortify this sin if it’s within you. And to repent and commit your lives to the Lord Jesus Christ as His true disciple. Considering all that He, God, and the Holy Spirit, as well as countless others before us have done so we may have the Holy Bible, know of the faith and Jesus, and eternal life. Don’t trash the free gift of grace, to not misunderstand Christian liberties and the forgiveness of sin.

Be counted among the remnant of faithful. Not among the goats to be separated from the sheep and cast into the fiery pit of hell for eternity. And take the time, the deep thinking to try and comprehend what eternity means, what eternity in hell means. And know that God is a just God. He can not allow wickedness into heaven, or permit liars and adulterers into heaven, to allow the unrepentant into heaven.

Fleeting carnal sensation is not worth it. It really isn’t…better the heart is right and delights the Lord our God than our eyes are delighted [deceived] here on this temporal earth!

Ken Pullen, A CROOKED PATH, Friday, December 2nd, 2022

Priest Advocates Porn for Overstressed Clergy

Priests like Fr. Backhaus are no longer rare exceptions in the church.

December 1, 2022

By William Kilpatrick

Reprinted from FrontPageMag

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the Church or Rome, Father Hermann Backhaus, a priest of the Diocese of Münster, Germany, proves you wrong. In a recent interview, Backhaus said that consuming pornography “can have a relieving effect” on celibate clergy.

A priest recommends pornography to fellow priests? It sounds strange at first—even a bit queer. But if you read below the headlines, you discover that Fr. Backhaus is also a psychologist. And, of course, psychologists speak with authority—even on moral issues.

At least, that’s what Fr. Backhaus seems to believe. He is quite proud of being a psychologist, and mentions the fact several times during the interview.  For example: “I not only have a degree in psychology, but also a graduate degree in moral theology. But in our institution, I work as a psychologist who is also a priest—and not the other way around.”

In other words, for Fr. Backhaus, the degree in psychology trumps the degree in moral theology. “As a psychologist,” he said, “I do not judge or condemn porn consumption.”

Being a psychologist, however, does not prevent him from judging those who do judge porn consumption as wrong. Even Pope Francis comes in for criticism for having recently warned that porn provides the devil an entry point into the soul. “To bring the devil in connection with pornography,” says Backhaus, “is a very strong statement. I don’t know if Francis is not rather working against his intention than promoting it.”

As Fr. Backhaus correctly discerns, Francis’s main intention all along has been to promote a permissive attitude toward sexual activity. He may from time to time say something to pacify traditional Catholics, but his real intentions are revealed in his hirings and firings. LGBT-supportive prelates are invariably promoted, while traditional clergy are regularly demoted.

If Francis really believed that pornography was a danger to the soul, he would immediately prohibit Backhaus from counseling priests, and send him off to a remote monastery for a few years of prayer and contemplation– sans cell phone.

What’s much more likely, however, is that, like other activists for sexual permissiveness such as Fr. James Martin, Fr. Backhaus will be invited to meet with Francis in a private audience. Shortly after, we can expect to see him given an influential post—perhaps in the Dicastery for Culture and Education. That institution is now headed by Francis appointee Cardinal Jose Tolentino de Mendonca, who, according to Rorate Caeli, “was well known in the Portuguese Church for being the absolutely most fabulous fabuloso of the whole fabulousness.”

One of Fr. Backhaus’s chief concerns is that priests are often lonely and overstressed. His solution to the problem is more pornography and more masturbation for their “relieving effect.” At the Dicastery of Education, he would have the time and resources for further research in the area. Perhaps the final result would be a patented product available on Amazon. It could be called “Father Backhaus’s fast relief technique for overstressed clergy.”

Meanwhile, despite what Fr. Backhaus may think, other psychologists are doubtful about the beneficial effects of pornography. For many people in our society, pornography has become a serious addiction and one of the leading causes of divorce as well. As with other forms of addiction—such as drug addiction—repeated use leads to higher tolerance. Just as drug users eventually seek higher doses or more powerful substances, porn addicts also seek stronger stimulation–often in depictions of multiple-partner sex acts, and/or sado-masochistic sex.

In the real world, moreover, pornography leads not to stress relief but to dissatisfaction with one’s spouse, increased marital tension, and an increased incidence of marital infidelity. In fact, even in marriages where there is no actual infidelity, pornography use is experienced by both spouses—the guilty one and the aggrieved one—as an act of infidelity.

One supposes that clergy who consume pornography would also experience it as an act of infidelity. Catholic clergy take vows of chastity, and Catholic teaching explicitly condemns pornography and masturbation as sins against chastity. If a priest has a healthy conscience, we would expect him to be bothered by these infidelities, and try harder to overcome them.

On the other hand, Fr. Backhaus wants priests to deaden their consciences and give in to their temptations. After all, he says, pornography is “something that is normal in our society.” And he notes that “about 95 percent of men and 90 percent of women admit during counseling that they have had experiences with masturbation.”

Fr. Backhaus ought to ask for a tuition refund for his program in moral theology. That’s because he’s making very basic mistakes in moral reasoning. He confuses “normality” with morality. He reasons that if everybody’s doing it, it must be okay. But, as every parent knows, following the crowd is not always good advice. About 100 percent of men and women have told lies at one time or another in their lives. I guess that makes lying “normal” in our society but it certainly doesn’t make it okay.

The “everybody’s doing it” argument usually goes along with the “let’s be realistic” argument. And sure enough, Fr. Backhaus uses that argument too. Citing his authority as a psychologist, he says “we start from real life, that is reality.” He then proceeds to cite the data on the prevalence of masturbation.

What Backhaus forgets, however, is that owning slaves once seemed perfectly normal, natural, and acceptable. Meanwhile, those who thought that slavery should be abolished were told that they had to be realistic.

But being realistic about human nature is to recognize that humans are not purely natural creatures who can safely follow whatever impulses “come naturally.” Rather, according to Christian tradition and teaching, people are meant to live on both the natural and supernatural level. And the proper order of things is for the supernatural to take precedence over the natural.

But through their sin, Adam and Eve upset the proper order of things. According to the Catholic Catechism, their sin was “an abuse of the freedom” (387) given by God, by which they fell from their original state of holiness into a state of sin.

Prior to the Fall, man exercised a “mastery of self” (377). After the Fall, however, “the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered” (400), and man becomes a slave to sin.

One can dismiss all of this as nothing more than an ancient myth, but it’s difficult to deny that the ancient “myth” fits the facts of human nature more closely than the vast majority of philosophical and psychological explanations.

After forgiving the woman caught in adultery, Jesus tells the Jews who had believed in him, “Truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8.34). And this is exactly the way many repeat sinners experience their sins. The alcoholic knows that he shouldn’t take another drink, but he can’t help himself. The porn addict knows that his habit is damaging his marriage, but he can’t resist the temptation. The verbally abusive husband knows he shouldn’t shout at his wife, but he can’t control his impulses.

In short, habitual sin takes away our freedom not to sin, and we truly become slaves to sin.

Herr Father Backhaus thinks that by encouraging priests to watch porn (or in some cases, more porn), he is freeing them both from stress and guilt. But in reality, he is setting them on a road that may lead them into spiritual slavery. At that point, other, more mature priests and psychologists will need to be called in to see if they can undo the damage.

The bad news is that priests like Fr. Backhaus are no longer rare exceptions in the Church. As anyone who pays attention can now see, the Catholic establishment is getting wackier by the day.

The good news is that the nuttiness has become so extreme and so visible that more and more Catholics are noticing. And that includes more of those who can actually do something about the situation.