Rome, Italy, Oct 4, 2017 / 04:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- It’s well-known that in ancient Rome hundreds of thousands of people would to pile into the stacked layers of stone seating in the Colosseum to watch gladiators fight to their death, cheering on as the warriors met a bloody and often drawn-out end.
However, while being a “gladiator” in modern Rome has mostly become a way pick up extra cash in photo-ops with tourists, there are some who argue that the gruesome nature of the ancient battles, in which people would essentially celebrate and take pleasure in the pain of others, hasn’t gone away, but has rather taken on a new, less obvious form in the digital world: pornography.
When it comes to internet pornography, Dr. Donald Hilton Jr. of the University of Texas Health Science Center said we as a society have to learn to ask the “uncomfortable questions about our culture, why we’re so easily voyeuristic to watch people being harmed.”
While pornography has always been a problem, the new widespread access offered through the digital world has led to a culture that enjoys “watching women being hurt on screen,” he told CNA.
Hilton recalled that in a tour of the Colosseum, his guide explained that throughout the centuries of its of operation, the structure “had up to several hundred thousand animals and gladiators dying in the colosseum with people watching them and enjoying watching their pain.”
Now “I think we have a neon colosseum, a colosseum of screens where far more, now, are watching people being harmed. And people are enjoying it,” he said, adding that in his opinion, “we’re no better than the ancient Romans in that.”
“In fact, in some way I think we’re worse, because at least they did it openly, but we hide behind our screens at night and do it, and tell ourselves it’s okay.”
Hilton spoke as part of a four-day conference on protecting children in a digitally connected and global society. Titled “Child Dignity in the Digital World,” the conference is being held in Rome Oct. 3-6 and is organized by the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin opened the conference as a keynote speaker. Other participants in the congress include social scientists, civic leaders, and religious representatives. Discussion points include prevention of abuse, pornography, the responsibility of internet providers and the media, and ethical governance.
Several leading personalities participating argued that given the easy access children have to the internet, they are increasingly falling prey to an industry that, without the proper protections, can ultimately leave them vulnerable, becoming victims to a wide variety of abuses.
On day two of the conference, Hilton was part of a panel of experts exploring the dangers of internet pornography and its impact on children, specifically the link between pornography and violence, and the effects of porn use on the human brain, particularly among youth.
A celebrated neuroscientist and world-renown surgeon, Hilton examined the scientific changes in the human brain when viewing pornography.
Essentially, he said human beings have “two brains,” one being the cortex, which he called our “thinking brain,” and the other being the brain stem, referred to by Hilton as our “wanting brain.” So while the brain might tell us to do something because it feels good, the cortex will tell us to slow down and think about the consequences.
Between the two is the “reward center” of the brain, he said, explaining that while it is intended to help motivate us, the reward center can be “hijacked and diverted” from this purpose if we take in “powerful rewards indiscriminately.”
In this case, the reward center can “reset the pleasure thermostat of the brain,” and a “new normal” is established, which can quickly become addiction, Hilton said, explaining that the brain structure is impacted by learning, and that “addictive learning sculpts the brain in a very damaging way.”
Referring to a recent study done by medical personnel, he said addictions to food and sex have now been put on par with substance abuse, because the same changes are found in brain studies “and the behaviors are almost identical.”
Children and young adults are particularly at risk from this, he said, because for one, the frontal-lobe control center of the brain don’t fully mature until the person is in their mid-20s. However, most exposure to pornography happens at a young age, leaving children particularly vulnerable to changes in the brain structure.
He said children are also more at risk because the chemicals for processing rewards and addictions are more potent brains that are not yet mature, so “an immature breaking system is essentially paired with an accelerated reward-seeking drive.” He also cited problems with brains systems that identify observers with the “motivational state” of those performing in the program, which in pornography is often linked to violence.
In his comments to CNA, Hilton said porn access at a young age is particularly concerning because since the brain of a child or teenager is not yet developed, it makes a strong imprint and “sets their template” in way that essentially sculpts the brain to prefer what they watch over reality.
Quoting American author, feminist, and political adviser Naomi Wolf, he said “pornified” boys are increasingly led to a mentality that “real women are just bad porn.”
Hilton said that in order to help counter the online porn industry, the issue has to be addressed in a new way. Whereas in the past it has primarily been relegated to the moral realm, he said the issue is wider, and that it’s important to bring the issue up in public settings “without mentioning religion.”
“Can we talk about exploitation not only of youth who are viewing pornography, but of young female performers that are being used up so quickly and exploited by a very powerful industry? Can we leave the religion out of it and talk about it from a public health perspective?” he said.
“This is a vast industry, the internet is a vast industry,” he said, adding that if any other industry had the same amount of disease, emotional health issues, and drug abuse involved, “they would cry out and there would be outrage.
However, “with porn, as long as they take their clothes off and put a camera there, you can do anything you want,” he said, comparing porn to “filmed prostitution.”
“Can we really say that porn is good and that people should view it if the people that make it are being harmed? Is it an ethical product then?” he asked, and noted that according to one study paper, 88 percent of the scenes in the 250 most popular porn movies show aggression toward women.
So when looking at the concrete numbers, “if it’s not ethical to produce it, is it ethical to watch it? What is the price someone is paying to film that?”
Also speaking at the conference was Dr. Mary Anne Layden, a psychotherapist and Director of Education for the University of Pennsylvania, who addressed the link between violence and pornography.
In her speech, she presented various research studies linking the use of pornography to increased aggression toward women. In youth particularly, various studies have proved that exposure to porn at a young age increases the likelihood youth will be promiscuous at an earlier age, and are more prone to partner abuse as they get older.
Porn use also and the misconceived belief that if access is so common, it isn’t harmful, and that women who are treated violently in porn films actually like it, she said.
In comments to CNA after her speech, Layden said pornography is especially dangerous for children because “everything children see is educational,” and since porn is typically the only imagery kids have when it comes to sex, they learn about it from “this toxic form.”
“Now their brains are absorbing this and they are getting these messages, and then they very quickly start to act on that,” she said, explaining that they “will likely start having sex earlier, they will likely think all relationships are sexual, they’ll start to try and get their partner to try and act out things they’ve seen in pornography.”
Pornography also leads to misconceptions about the human body and what constitutes abuse, she said, explaining that many young adults have come into her clinic complaining that their bodies “don’t work” because things don’t happen like they do in movies.
While numerous research studies have proven that performers in pornography films don’t enjoy what they do on-set, many people still believe the opposite, Layden said, because they don’t see the suffering the performers endure.
What most people don’t know, she said is that “on those porn sets there is a doctor, on every porn set,” and “he will give you any drug you can name – he will give you Percocet, he will give you Xanex, he will give you heroine, he will give you anything to get you to go through that scene, take that torture and smile while they’re doing it.”
She said that when children first come into contact with pornography their initial reaction is that “there’s something scary” about it, and even something violent, but that very quickly they start to learn from what they see that “violence is a sex act,” and this notion becomes more normal as they get older.
In terms of protecting children from harmful images, Layden stressed the importance of educating parents on the risks and finding the right software to block problematic content from popping up.
Unfortunately, she said around only 20 percent of parents have actually put protective software on their children’s devices and activated it.
But if parents are looking for a good company, she said “Covenant Eyes” has programs that work very effectively through blocks and accountability software that will send a list of their child’s search history to them at the end of the week.
While it might not be possible bring the porn access to zero, it is possible to reduce it, Layden said.
“The fact that we can’t reduce it to zero doesn’t make us stop anything else,” she said, naming youth smokers and cancer patients as examples. And concrete ways to reduce exposure is to put filters on computers in libraries and at schools, as well as personal devices children own, and to not let them put their computers in their bedrooms.
She also stressed the need to get legislators and governments involved, explaining that pornography sites have finally been legally required to check the age of someone trying to access their web-pages.
“That won’t stop the damage that’s done to adult men,” she said, explaining that pornography first of all does damage to those who use it, “but it will stop with the most vulnerable, which is the children.”
Perpetrators of pornography must also be held accountable, Layden said, because the industry ultimately makes money by “hurting children.”
“This is an absolute scandal, these are child abuse perpetrators, these pornographic websites,” she said, explaining that they ought to be treated as perpetrators and put in jail, because “if you actually enforce law against obscenity, you can actually take all of their profits.”
Doing this would also “send the message to culture that if we’re putting them in jail, this must be a bad thing,” she said. “The permission-giving beliefs that say everyone is doing it, it must be fine, is just one of the biggest damages, and we can start the sending the message that it’s not okay.”
“We’ve got to stop saying ‘boys will be boys,’” and instead begin educating families more effectively on what healthy sexuality entails, she said, because pornography “hurts everyone involved; men, women, children, performers…it hurts everybody that comes close to it.”
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The ZdK’s what’shername says that Cardinal Woelke’s action is “beyond incomprehensible.” Well, he/she/it at least got that right. What is beyond comprehensible IS comprehensible!
Butt, what is really “incomprehensible” is why der Synodal Weg was awarded seats at the Vatican Synod (!) in Rome, when the Vatican previously identified der Synodal Weg as a “non-synod.” Also incomprehensible is how the underlying (and lying?) abuse in Germany is the mixed voting structure (a “backwardist” echo of France’s 1789 Tennis Court Oath!)–and how this capitulation became a template for the expanded Synod (now non-synod?) in Rome.
The archbishop of Cologne is “beyond incomprehensible”…such a robotic comment echoes the days immediately following German liberation (World War II):
When Dr. Konrad Adenauer again had been made mayor of (the same) Cologne, British leftists ejected him from his office under the (written) pretext that he (incomprehensibly!) “lacked the qualifications to run a city as large as Cologne” (von Kuenelt-Leddhin, “Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse,” 1974, p 325).
Adenauer soon became chancellor of a West Germany (1949-1963) restored as a valued member of the civilized world.
Adenauer also is remembered for this prophecy about today: “In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity.”
What has happened now within the Church in Germany–except for Cologne and a few other pockets of functional memory? And, might history sort of repeat itself? “God is full of surprises!”
Hitler on the Left? The Right owns him!!!
No, your assumption is a myth of leftist renditions of false history, a lie repeated by intellectuals to exonerate the left of its biggest sin. The left is rooted in the moral nihilism that gave rise to Naziism as well as all totalitarian states and, as the Church in Germany proves, Germany has never fully removed itself from moral nihilism post Naziism. Anti-Christianity merely morphs into different socially acceptable forms. And the moral nihilism of liberal democracies are too corrupt with their own depravities to have ever noticed.
Nazi means National Socialism. Hitler was a Socialist.
Antifa and the summer of 2020.
No, the Left ‘owns’ Hitler. Ceded by poseurs who were taken aback by the violence.
The Church can no more ‘bless’ sodomy that it can deny Christ.
Read your history please. National Socialism….🙄
Its not what’s in the spelling, darling. Nor in the acronym. Its what the group represents in reality.The Nazi’s were totalitarians, no matter what initials you give them.
Hitler’s Germany is almost a hybrid accident of history, all pointing to his inevitable rise on the shoulders of Luther’s individualism (a central aspect of sola Scriptura versus Tradition which includes the writing of scripture). Disintegrating individualism seeks a magnet. I quote from one of von Kuenelt-Leddhin’s earlier pieces (“Liberty OR Equality,” 1952, 394 pages with 990 fine-print footnotes). He concludes a later chapter in italics:
“It is the combination [!] of the degenerative process of Protestantism with Catholic absolutism and extremism [meaning absolutes] which became such a dangerous mixture [in Germany]” (p. 232). Perfect tinder for the rise of the Hitler messiah. Railing in part, it is true, against the crushing burden of reparations under the Versailles Treaty (which all parties were willing to review, except decimated France which, itself, in order to keep from going under, needed the resource shipments of the Ruhr Valley).
The above quote/finding is preceded by a fascinating figure delineating the “Genealogy of National Socialism.” It looks like a pinball machine with Waldo, Morsiglio, Wycliffe, the Hussites and Lollards at the very top, then mostly centering on Luther, and then a cobweb of interacting influences—finally nine vertical lines all converging on National Socialism. Near the middle, Calvin/Knox/Anglicanism drops off the chart, as does modern capitalism (but interactive Marxism proceeds through Socialism/Communism, and filters into National Socialism, alongside radical democracy the French Revolution. But largely Luther—in tinder box Germany.
Statistically, the author also displays supporting maps, very detailed voting districts, of the religious (Protestant and Catholic) distribution and voting results in 1932 and 1934. Nazi predominance and Catholic concentrations (primarily Bavaria in the south and very Western Germany) are inverse of each other. The concentration of Communist votes is also least in Bavaria (which incidentally was the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI).
Many pointy-headed academicians are anesthetized by mutually favorable peer reviews, and therefore are too often clueless about the deeper and spiritual currents of history. The Land O’Lakes Declaration illustrates.
I agree that Erik Von Kuenelt-Leddhin was more than an astute historian and political philosopher. And the young, indoctrinated into simplistic notions of a political spectrum designed to keep them from understanding the origins of evil, would do well to accomplish an effective quick path to a truthful understanding of history after reading his book “Leftism.”
Wondering why you felt it necessary’s to criticize “such a robotic comment the author of the article?
For 2,000 years the Catholic Church followed Christ to say sodomy is sinful. If Synods of People now try to “bless” sin by calling sin “love,” it’s illogical to think a serious minded same-sex couple would trust the Church. Inventing a ritual that violates Sacred Scripture and Tradition today would not prevent that Church from changing their mind again.
This has always been about an angry power grab. It’s purpose is suicidal.
Unfortunately, there is little resolve to fight back against the tide of deconstructing the Church illustrating how paper thin the faith has been in the lives of millions. When a pope repeatedly insists that mercy mercy mercy can be construed exclusively in terms of exonerating sinners from guilt while mercilessly ignoring the victims of sin, exactly like the wacko liberal “moral theologians” of the silly seventies “rethinking” moral precepts, and many Catholics are more willing to get hostile towards those who say moral relativism is wrong because it is an offense to God and humanity than say the Pope is wrong, we know the spirit of Luther and the reality of Satan are alive and active throughout our Church.
Excellent.
The GAY Lobbyist will never stop, it is what they do. Gays will not be good Catholics period. Forcing acceptance allows them another achievement to avoid recognition of their sins. In American we have been forced to accept and now being forced to accept children as gay. Children need crossing guards to cross the road but some how they are capable of claiming homosexuality. Rampant sexual diseases can’t even stop them. Catholic Church is the last challenge, so they’re putting everything they have into changing the faith. It will then be rolled out worldwide. The Pope needs strength to see the big picture and how they are using Germany. Pray for the Pope that he can see through this game and the sinful nature of these people.
Poor thin Cardinal Woelki and maybe a couple other guys pulling at the rope for orthodox practice. They have no chance in a tug of war versus all those enormous prelates on the sodomy side. Just think of Cardinal Marx at the rear with the rope around his Eminence, digging in for all the friends he has “blessed.” It’s not very sporting.
What do all these things have in common?
– Paschale the Anti-pope.
– Martin Luther
– WWI
– WWII
– V II (inculcating the “spirit” of the Council)
– Klaus Schwab
– The massive influx of Syrian Refugees across Europe
Give up?? (By #2 above, you should have known. Feel free to add to my list.)
As a devout Catholic of mixed German-Austrian ethnicity, I get your point. I earlier replied to this idea with reference to Roger Scruton’s (British philosopher and commenter on moral culture) concern about Germany and her people. He considered the nation had not effectively mourned their loss nor acknowledged or recompensed its past moral failures.
OTOH, ought we neglect the good people and God-given blessings from Germany? Think of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (who died at Auschwitz), St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Bruno (founder of Carthusian order), Albert Magnus (teacher of St. Aquinas)!
Many good inventors and scientists (e.g., Einstein) were of German origin. German manufactured goods are usually of long-lasting quality (cf. goods from China). The great orthodox Catholic philosopher von Hildebrand and preacher Bonhoeffer spoke courageously against crimes and moral degradation of Naziism, at great personal loss. Think of the greatness of Beethoven’s art.
VCII did not go awry simply because of Germany! Rome had influence too! Paul VI hailed from Italy as did John XXIII. And Bugnini.
Thank God the Holy Spirit has retired because of His Long Age and exhaustion and has passed the legacy of its Gifts and His Wisdom and Love to several German women and her ampulous priests friends. I was concerned about the transition but now I see that the Holy Church can be at ease and in peace. These folks know better than anybody else what the Church needs to do to lose every single faithful on Earth at speedlight and to turn Jesuschrist’s eternal words into fluffy slogans.
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki is a remarkable standout in the Catholic Church; he resists the Vatican, as well as the most radical Leftist national Catholic majority in the world. It seems His Holiness fears him, since he had been accused of unproved allegations of mishandling clerical abuse and remained defiant claiming innocence. Many others might have buckled.
We may see in Woelki, Strickland, certainly Vigano, perhaps Cordileone to name a few who will form a proactive counter movement to the irresistible tide of error fomenting from the Vatican in the guise of enlightenment. The real deal on Christ’s true nature. As if, as Card Walter Kasper has articulated his ideations, Jesus now has misgivings on the efficacy of the crucifixion. Has changed his mind. And is in agreement with His Holiness’ doctrine. The one fervently protected by his personally appointed defender of the faith, DDF perfect Card Víctor Fernández. Looks like rough sailing ahead. I’ve always loved storms.
Feasts Sts Cosmas and Damien, twin martyr physicians who would have looked at those who persecuted them with the eyes and heart of The Lord , pleading -‘ Lord deliver them from the demonic powers , generational spirits …to turn to You with trust and gratitude for being forgiven ,for the price You paid for same, we too love and forgive them with Your Love and mercy ..’ -good Patrons for those who have become blinded to trust that The Lord can bring deliverance and healing , in bringing wounded occasions unto The Mother to be united with her sorrows , for the Holy Spirit Love to be poured forth , unto generational lines too that often succumbed to carnal kingdoms of lusts and power , also accept the Fatherly blessing of the Holy Father that he/ The Church does not judge any one as being beyond God’s grace and mercy to live in holiness and chastity , its joy and peace ..for here and hereafter .
More of the access and awareness of the Divine Will teachings too possibly a powerful antidote ..
Why has this ‘situation’ been permitted to go on for so long? We all know that the blessing of same-sex unions will never be permitted. Why have those who have promoted this in the Church, not been silenced? What about the sin of scandal?