". . . lust isolates, while love unites" Archbishop George Niederauer's Keynote Address to the Lighted Candle Society

"Pornography is not a new challenge to single-hearted human love and to respect for the dignity of human persons and human sexuality,” said Archbishop George Niederauer recently during his keynote address at the Lighted Candle Society's annual Guardian of Light supper. “However, the explosive increase in the accessibility and availability of pornography is new and deeply troubling. Pornography is now way beyond a problem with films and magazines. Every computer terminal is its pipeline, and cell phones and other hand held devices, many of them marketed to children and young people, literally deliver pornography everywhere, to anyone." He termed this an "electronic tsunami".

Wonderfully typical of the pastoral approach of the Archbishop of San Francisco, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Communications and a member of the Pontifical Council on Social Communications, he doesn't primarily focus on the what, but the why, which is always more important:

"What should motivate us most profoundly is not the amount of pornography there is, but the kind of harm it does. Pornography assaults human dignity and commodifies people and human sexuality. Porn starves the human soul in its spiritual dimension.... The human person, an irreplaceable gift, becomes a throwaway toy."



(Quotes from the The Intermountain Catholic, where you can read the entire article)