We are dedicating this issue of the Goretti Group Gazette to a subject that scars more lives than we can guess. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “[Pornography] does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others…It is a grave offense.” (CCC 2354) This serious injury to the dignity of all involved in viewing/reading/watching/creating pornography is an injury the Goretti Group meets face to face as often as we look into the eyes of our audiences. When we enter a school, youth or young adult group or even a parent talk, the statistics tell us (as well as some courageous souls who talk to us afterward) that we are speaking with many who did not hear the message of God’s plan for pure love in time to save them from exposure and even addiction to pornography. While this problem is pervasive and oppressive, there is hope. As we tell those in our audiences, our Lord is far more powerful, loving and merciful than the potency, un-love and merciless chains of pornography. He can, He has and He will continue to free many, who, like the prodigal son, have taken and squandered the Father’s inheritance, exchanging the beautiful gift of their sexuality for a dark, and twisted lie. In fact, Jesus will free all who sincerely persevere in asking Him to do so (it’s what He promised when He said: “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you.” (John 16:23))
Though sexual addiction may seem impossible to overcome the Lord assures us, as He assured Mary through the Angel Gabriel, that “nothing will be impossible for God.” (Luke 1:37) Whether you or someone you love struggles with pornography or any other sin against purity, there are plenty of practical ways to be transformed by Christ. First, pray. As mentioned above, those who ask for help, receive it, those who seek strength, find it, and to those who knock on Heaven’s door, it will be opened (based on Matthew 7:7). Do not be afraid to talk openly and freely with our Lord about your struggles and beg Him for His help. Jesus never sinned, but He was tempted by the devil in every way. In the fullness of His humanity, Jesus understands how difficult temptation can be, but, in the fullness of His divinity He tells us: “In this world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33)
Just as Jesus bore the wretchedness of the world’s sin on the cross at Calvary, and Resurrected it to the most glorious thing of all—eternal life-- so too He can take the things that are most dead in us, the things of which we are most ashamed, and turn them into a glorious story of triumph. And the best place to do this? The Confessional. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is Jesus’ gift to the Church to know and appropriate His mercy in a powerful and necessary way. Do not be afraid; the priest has heard whatever you have to say thousands of times over and he is there to stand in the person of Christ and cover you with God’s mercy and love. Confession is the first step to be able to receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the Eucharist, which is the next step to freedom. Frequent Mass and Reconciliation are extremely powerful tools in the arsenal of God’s soldiers to win this battle with lust and death and find the victory of love and life.
Another powerful step toward freedom is that of finding and surrounding yourself with others who want to follow God and live purity. Share with them your struggles, and help each other with prayer and accountability. And, just as you share with and ask prayers from your friends on earth, don’t forget the powerful intercession of your friends in Heaven. St. Augustine is among many of the Church’s great saints who has “been there and done that.” He knows what it’s like to struggle with sins of impurity and he knows what it’s like to allow Jesus Christ to conquer those sins and transform his heart. And, of course, there is Mary, Jesus’ most pure mother, whom He gave to us as our mother, while hanging on the cross. Mary is our spiritual mother and we are close to her heart and her prayers are ever close to Jesus’ heart.
It is our prayer at the Goretti Group that through the intercession of all the angels and saints and in the powerful name of Jesus, all people will be freed and healed from all sexual sin and addiction in order to live the joy of purity. We pray that the articles in this issue as well as all of our events will aid many in their journey toward chastity and true love. Thank you to those who are praying with us, sponsoring us financially, and volunteering for us—yours are the hands and feet that are making this mission possible. May God bless you abundantly!
In Christ,
Peggy Tacchino
Special Projects Coordinator
Cleaning Up The InternetConcern Over Harmful Effects of Pornography
By Father John Flynn, LC
ROME, JAN. 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Governments in a number of countries are raising concerns over the way in which the Internet is allowing unlimited access to all sorts of pornography.
China recently warned a number of online portals and search engines that are making it easy for Internet users to come into contact with porn, CNN reported Jan. 6.
CNN revealed that the move comes as several Chinese government agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security, launched a month-long campaign to clean up the Web.
Last year Indonesia announced it would block access to pornographic Web sites after the government passed legislation that criminalized producing and accessing immoral content on the Internet, reported the Financial Times, March 26.
In Australia, the federal government is studying the possibility of introducing a nationwide Internet filter, but the proposal is being strongly criticized by free speech advocates, the Associated Press reported Dec. 26. There are also doubts over the technical possibilities of putting into place such a filter.
Federal communications minister Stephen Conroy proposed the filter last year, in fulfillment of a campaign promise made by the Labor Party government to make the Internet cleaner and safer.
In Canada a local magazine, Macleans, put the problem of pornography and the Internet on its front cover in the June 18 issue last year. The accompanying editorial noted the incongruence of having ratings systems to protect children and teens from violent or pornographic content in cinemas and for the sale of DVDs, and also for television broadcasters, but no controls over Internet content.
An idea of the pervasive presence of pornography on the Internet was given during the annual "White Ribbon Against Pornography Week," which ran from Oct. 26 to Nov. 2.
In an Oct. 26 article on the Christian Post Web site, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, director of Concerned Women for American, noted that over 15,000 new adult movie titles are released every year.
She also said that recent figures reveal 35 million visits to porn sites from American computers every month. Crouse cited a 2007 study by the University of New Hampshire, showing that 42% of Internet users, aged 10 to 17, said they had seen online pornography within a one-year period.
A big deal?
Many, however, deny that viewing pornography has any harmful effects. A convincing reply to such views came in the form of a book published last year by Jill C. Manning, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in the area of pornography and sexual behavior.
In her book, “What’s the Big Deal about Pornography?: A Guide for the Internet Generation,” (Shadow Mountain) Manning sets out a detailed explanation of how using porn damages adolescents, along with advice on how to overcome the addictive nature of such habits.
Pornography is certainly nothing new, Manning readily admitted, but there are some new elements that make its presence particularly harmful in recent times. Not only is porn being increasingly glamorized and accepted as a part of popular culture, but in addition the Internet has made it readily available as never before.
Before the Internet came along normally pornography was not available at home or in the workplace unless someone chose to bring it along. Nowadays, it can enter wherever there is an Internet connection. As well, it is available at little cost and can be accessed with anonymity.
Moreover, she added, a great deal of the pornography being distributed today is disturbingly sinister, violent, and degrading.
Damage
Manning described a number of ways in which pornography damages people:
-- It is something that is potentially addictive. As such it can hinder a person’s ability to make clear choices;
-- It can powerfully distort a person’s outlook on bodies, relationships, and sexuality;
-- It leads people to objectify others, viewing them as sex toys that exist only for our own gratification;
-- Due to its distorting influence it undermines opportunities for young people to be self-confident, happy, and to create enduring relationships in the future.
“It thereby affects their ability to see life in truthful, helpful, and wholesome ways,” she concluded.
Manning lamented that many young people are not taught enough about what makes relationships or marriages work as it makes them less attentive to how using porn will damage their ability to interact with others.
Citing the results of various studies into the effects of regular pornography consumption Manning pointed out a number of the harmful side-effects:
-- Decreased sensitivity to women, showing more aggression, rudeness and less respect;
-- Decreased desire to have children and raise a family;
-- Increased risk of experiencing difficulties in intimate relationships;
-- Increased risk of becoming sexually abusive toward others;
-- Increased risk of being exposed to incorrect information about human sexuality;
-- Increased risk of becoming sexually dissatisfied with your future spouse;
-- Increased risk for divorce once you are married.
Manning also slammed as one of the “biggest lies that pornography sells,” the argument that viewing it will help young people understand sexuality and become more confident.
In fact, she continued, porn users tend to have more insecurities around members of the opposite sex and more difficulty in developing close relationships.
“Every person I have worked with who has been involved with pornography has had less understanding about relationships and sexuality than those who were not looking at pornography,” Manning stated.
Sinister connections
Another book, published in 2007 by the California-based anti-trafficking nongovernmental organization Captive Daughters, widens the debate over pornography and highlights the social damage created. In the collected essays of “Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking,” a number of the authors related how the spread of pornography is linked to trafficking in women and children and prostitution.
Catharine MacKinnon, the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, argued that pornography is just another way in which women and children are trafficked for sex.
Consuming pornography is an experience of bought sex, of sexually using another person as an object that has been purchases, and in this sense is very similar to prostitution, according to MacKinnon.
Moreover, in common with prostitution, many of those who are portrayed in porn films are not there by choice, but because of a lack of choices, she argued. As with many prostitutes they consent to these acts due to a variety of factors, including sexual abuse, drug problems, or economic need.
Another of the contributors to the volume, Melissa Farley, described pornography as cultural propaganda that drives home the notion that all women are prostitutes. Farley, a clinical psychologist, is director of the San Francisco-based nongovernmental organization Prostitution Research and Education.
The Internet, she said, has created and expanded opportunities for men to sexually exploit women.
Farley also pointed out that interviews with women who were prostitutes revealed that many of them said that pornography was made of them while they were engaged in acts of prostitution.
Pornography, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, not only offends against chastity, but also: “It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others” (No. 2354).
As well, the Catechism observes that: “It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world.” A fantasy world that has, nevertheless, very real damaging effects, both for individuals and society.
© Innovative Media, Inc.
Reprinted with permission from www.zenit.org
Rosary vs. PornographyPosted by Tom Hoopes
(http://www.ncregister.com/daily/16407/)
Saturday, November 01, 2008 11:08 AM
“The Rosary is excruciating. There I said it.” Thus begins Brian Pessaro’s “My Struggle With the Rosary” at Godspy.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today had it not been for Mary’s intercession,” he writes. “Since the age of 11, I was addicted to pornography. It began simple enough with sneaking peaks at my best friend’s father’s Playboys in the basement of his house. But by the time I was 25, I was so hooked on Internet porn that I would itch for my wife to leave the apartment so I could secretly jump online. Several times over the years I tried to quit. Each time, not only did I fail, but the addiction got worse to the point where I gave up resisting.”
Then, while looking at a book about apparitions, he had an experience of Mary. Pessaro gives a striking account of why he prays the daily Rosary at all.
He said his earthly mother rarely scolded him. His Heavenly mother suddenly did: “I felt her say to me sternly, ‘Brian you’ve got to stop looking at that garbage. Starting now!’”
That night he went online and in the dresser drawer for entirely new reasons: He ordered a Scapular and pulled out his grandmother’s rosary beads.
Not only did he kick the habit, he says but also “when I was in my late twenties I could still see those images from when I was eleven as if it were yesterday,” he says, “And now they’re gone.”
He admirably calls everyone to pray the Rosary daily, just like he does. Even if it’s tough.
What we would say to him is: It doesn’t have to be quite so tough. In 2004, we dedicated an issue of the Register to the Rosary and for each mystery offered 10 points of meditation, artwork, additional prayers, and scripture.
The Rosary issue was a huge hit.
“It is the best resource I have found so far,” wrote one woman, a teacher. “Would you please tell me how I can obtain 20 copies?” We did.
“I am a Protestant who is journeying toward the Catholic faith,” wrote another. “The rosary was always a mystery to me. Your rosary issue has been such a blessing. Have you thought of providing your guide in a booklet form?” We did that, too.
We created a booklet version of our Rosary Guide, and, with the help of CatholicMil.org, “Thousands of copies of the Guide were mailed to Catholic troops overseas,” wrote Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, who was then the Military Archbishop. “Demand was so great, that our supply was soon exhausted.”
The supply is no longer exhausted. To get your copy, click here.
http://circlepress.org/shop/index.php?p=product&id=2&parent=7
To preview the content (without the beautiful artwork) look here.
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/4257
I’ll ask Circle Press on Monday if Brian Pessaro’s order has been processed yet.
— Tom Hoopes
Reprinted with permission from NCRegister.com
For original article see: http://www.ncregister.com/daily/16407/
The Prayers that Freed One Man from Addiction:
St. Maria Goretti's StorySt. Maria Goretti, the patron saint and namesake of The Goretti Group was killed by one man’s addiction to pornography. In 1902, when Maria was only 11 years old, Alessandro Serenelli, a young man who was addicted to pornography lost further control of his lust and stabbed Maria 14 times when she refused his sexual advances. Maria, who did not die before forgiving Alessandro and telling the priest that she wanted him in Heaven with her, got her wish. Alessandro was converted, and his life completely transformed after Maria appeared to him in prison. St. Maria Goretti’s prayers were powerful enough to convert and transform the man who murdered her because the grave sin of pornography had seriously injured and deluded his soul…her prayers will most certainly storm the heavens for all others who invoke her intercession today.
Alessandro’s conversion speaks to the power of forgiveness, prayer and the love of God. Read here Alessandro’s own words about how a man like himself, once blinded by lust, was redeemed by God’s grace.
"I'm nearly 80 years old. I'm about to depart. Looking back at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself. My behavior was influenced by print, mass-media and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking. And I did the same. I was not worried.
There were a lot of generous and devoted people who surrounded me, but I paid no attention to them because a violent force blinded me and pushed me toward a wrong way of life. When I was 20 years-old, I committed a crime of passion. Now, that memory represents something horrible for me. Maria Goretti, now a Saint, was my good Angel, sent to me through Providence to guide and save me. I still have impressed upon my heart her words of rebuke and of pardon. She prayed for me, she interceded for her murderer. Thirty years of prison followed. If I had been of age, I would have spent all my life in prison. I accepted to be condemned because it was my own fault.
Little Maria was really my light, my protectress; with her help, I behaved well during the 27 years of prison and tried to live honestly when I was again accepted among the members of society. The Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins from Marche, welcomed me with angelic charity into their monastery as a brother, not as a servant. I've been living with their community for 24 years, and now I am serenely waiting to witness the vision of God, to hug my loved ones again, and to be next to my Guardian Angel and her dear mother, Assunta.
I hope this letter that I wrote can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life."
Signature,
Alessandro Serenelli
(Alessandro's letter is quoted on http://www.mariagoretti.org/alessandrobio.htm)
Featured Speaker: Kara KleinA prolific songwriter, Kara has written over 200 original Christian hymns, 10 of which are featured on her debut album A Touch of Your Grace, released August 20, 2004.
In March, 2005, Kara released “Beautiful Still—Terri’s Song”, a single dedicated to Terri Schindler-Schiavo and her family. The song was featured on worldwide television on EWTN’s Life on the Rock, the night of Terri’s death. In November 2005 Kara sang at the annual UCMVA Unity Awards in Minneapolis and has performed the song in many venues throughout the nation since then. On October 2, 2007, Kara sang Beautiful Still at the annual National Right to Life Convention in Washington DC, where the Schindler family was honored for their work promoting the pro-life cause.
Kara released “I Am Home” in late October 2006. The CD’s title song, dedicated to Katrina victims living in the New Orleans area, won a Unity Award at the 2007 Annual UCMVA Awards ceremonies for “Best Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year” and the video version won a Unity Award for the “Best Video/DVD of the Year”.
In 2007, Kara appeared as a featured artist on EWTN’s Backstage series and EWTN's The Knights of St. Michael television series, which debuted in 2008.
In November, 2007, Kara released two additional albums: “The Gift of Christmas” and a devotional CD entitled “Enduring Love – A Rosary for Chastity”. The CD “The Gift of Christmas” received a 2007 Unity Awards for “Seasonal Album of the Year”. Kara sang selected songs from her Christmas CD on December 23, 2007 at “Merry Christmas New York City”, a Christmas benefit concert at Carnegie Hall alongside internationally renowned Irish tenor Mark Forrest and other noted Catholic artists.
Kara’s other experiences have included traveling to Cologne, Germany in 2005 for World Youth Day with Pope Benedict XVI, where she performed as a featured singer. During her time in Europe she filmed two music videos in Rome. She has also traveled nationally and internationally on music missions, where she has sung and spoken in various churches, schools, prisons and drug-rehab centers. On April 27, 2005, Kara was a featured speaker at the Susan B. Anthony List’s Real Women’s Voices press conference in Washington, D.C., where she sang Beautiful Still and spoke about bringing an end to abortion. Additionally, Kara has traveled throughout the United States giving chastity talks.
Help Heal Hearts and Change Lives: Support the Goretti Group!St. Mark's girls giving roses to MaryPornography is just one among many bullets firing at young people's hearts today. Everywhere they turn teens are bombarded by flashy messages that glorify pre-marital sexual activity. Many are buying the lies of lust because they have not heard the message of the true, pure love that their hearts long for. The message of chastity must be delivered in a relatable, effective way that will pierce the cloud of confusion hanging over our culture with the light and love of Christ. And this message must be delivered NOW!
The Goretti Group is a 501(c)3 non-profit, charitable organization. We are only able to operate by the generosity of our supporters, and we are in great need. The Lord is calling us to grow our outreach, in order to share the the joy of purity with exponentially greater numbers of people across the nation through our Chariots of Fire Chastity Missionary Program. The missionaries will be formed in a deep prayer life, trained to share about chastity, and sent out to deliver powerful retreats. In order to get this program up and running--we need your support!
Your Monthly Contribution will allow More young people to hear the truth and come away Transformed. Just take a look at the way the Goretti Group has touched lives thus far and think about these responses increasing exponentially and reverberating in Heaven!
"It has been a wonderful experience...I think, actually I will make a change in my life for the better after this retreat. I will never forget we are princesses of God and we are beautiful. Thank you for letting me have this opportunity to build a stronger relationship with God." ~Sarah, San Marcos, CA
"To tell you the truth, I thought it was going to be boring, but all you greatly proved me wrong. It got me in touch with my spirituality, something I have not done in a long time...It is good to hear positive things about virginity from so many people besides my parents..." ~ Meg, San Marcos, CA
Donations may be made at www.thegorettigroup.org (click donate at the upper right) or send checks to The Goretti Group, Inc. 1629 Columbia Street, San Diego, CA 92101
