Catholic World Report

Opinion

Ten ways the media has failed to protect kids.

By Tom Hoopes

When reporters first began to pound Pope Benedict XVI, spuriously, on the abuse problem, the Internet news outlets of the biggest media companies in the world had to make a tough choice. What to feature: the slideshow of Tiger Woods’ latest porn-star mistress, available to all users regardless of age; the viral video of “Bombshell” McGee stripping before she met Jesse James, so popular with the middle-school crowd; or the hard-hitting critique of how careless the Pope is about children?

The irony of it would have been funny if it wasn’t so disgusting.

Sometimes we are most oblivious to what is most obvious. So let us describe the elephant in the room regarding the abuse scandals and how the biggest players in the media handle issues of sexuality, children, and abuse.

Special Report

The latest social science research on the destructive effects of pornography.

By Patrick F. Fagan

The fact that marriage rates are dropping steadily is well known. But the impact of pornography use and its correlation to fractured families has been little discussed. The data show that as pornography use and sales increase, the marriage rate drops.

The costs of this kind of pornographic saturation are becoming more and more visible. Much is made of the effects of pornography on men and rightly so, but its most tragic effects can be seen in the marriages and families of men who are habitual users, for pornography and infidelity are almost interchangeable, at least in the heart. And in family life the heart counts most. Pornography is a powerful acid that weakens the capacity to marry or sustain a marriage.

Special Report

It finds that most new ones go to orders that observe a traditional religious life. Here is a look at some of those orders.

By Ann Carey

A new study of recent vocations to religious life in the United States has found that most new vocations are going to orders that practice more traditional forms of religious life. Some have expressed surprise at this, because orders that have discarded many of those traditions sometimes claim that way of life does not appeal to the young. Other people, however, have noticed this trend toward traditional religious life for 20 years, and now there is empirical data to prove it.

The study, “Recent Vocations to Religious Life: A Report for the National Religious Vocation Conference,” was conducted by the well-respected Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University and published in August 2009. The study concluded:

The most successful institutes in terms of attracting and retaining new members at this time are those that follow a more traditional style of religious life in which members live together in community and participate in daily Eucharist, pray the Divine Office, and engage in devotional practices together. They also wear a religious habit, work together in common apostolates, and are explicit about their fidelity to the Church and the teachings of the Magisterium. All of these characteristics are especially attractive to the young people who are entering religious life today.