WARNING, THIS ARTICLE IS NOT FOR CHILDREN!

Warning, this article is not for children.

This weekend many of the parishes in the diocese are participating in the Safe Haven project. This deals with a very delicate and uncomfortable topic and that is pornography. Because of the number of smaller children that we have in the parish, I have chosen not to put out materials related to it, but since many of the children do not read the bulletin article, I am going to share some information this way.

Currently the statistics are very bleak, the average age for the first encounter with hard core pornography is down to nine years old and some studies state that almost half of high-schoolers regularly view or are addicted to pornography. That statistic includes both girls and boys. One of the sad realities is that young people are increasingly exposed to more and more adult materials and at younger and younger ages. This means that they are often seeing these materials as normal adult behaviors and normal sexual encounters. Many of these sites promote older with younger partners, as well as violent, abusive, and controlling encounters. This is what they are experiencing as the way that sex is supposed to be. We, of course, know that this is not the case, the act is intended for the marital embrace between a man and a woman in the sacrament of marriage. With the ease and availability of pornographic material the rates of addiction are soaring and the fastest growing rate is girls. In my younger years, someone would need to go to a store and purchase or rent the material in person, now, one is able to simply pull out their phone or turn on their computer and within seconds anonymously are able to see just about anything that they want. We can do this from pretty much anywhere that we want.

There is some hope though. There are resources that we can use to help us. There is software available that we can install on any device that will filter unwanted material. While we are not able to see what our children are looking at online, we can make some modifications to help protect them. This also goes for us as adults, many people suffer from this addiction and studies show that pornography is as addictive as cocaine, however many think that pornography is not harmful. In my previous career, I saw people fired from their job or end up divorced for this very addiction. There is help, if you are struggling with it, or a family member is struggling with it. On the dmdiocese.org website, under the marriage and family life tab, there are resources listed. You are also welcome to talk to Fr. Ryan, myself, or someone else that you trust about it. There is also counseling services and support groups around the area that can help, the diocese is also working on putting together some support groups and are looking at offering them here in Ankeny. I would encourage every adult to be mindful of this growing problem in our society, and work on ways to curtail it. Keep praying!

God bless,
Fr. Ken