Past issue with pornography

[Alindawyl]

I’m frequently guilty of being scrupulous and think there may be some of that at work here. If you haven’t heard the term scrupulous before, it basically means being overly critical of yourself. Not normal critical, but critical to an almost obsessive level. It’s one thing to admit that porn is wrong and another thing to fret over whether or not any specific type of porn needed to be confessed separately or it didn’t count.

Scrupulosity is one of the weapons employed by Satan and his minions. If he can get us to believe we didn’t receive forgiveness for something, or sinned when we really didn’t, then it makes his job all that much easier. Feelings of self-loathing can crop up, as well as a sense of failure and unworthiness which is not healthy.

When you get down to it, it’s a trust issue. Do you trust God to know what’s in your heart and forgive you even if you forgot to mention a specific incident? Forgiving ourselves is so much harder than him forgiving us. We often want to hold on to our sins after forgiveness and mull over them. Don’t do it. Let them go. Breaking our attachment to a particular sin is so much easier when we are able to forgive ourselves and let the past remain the past.

If you honestly forgot to mention a sin at confession, just mention it next time and say you forgot it the last time. I’ve done that several times before. God forgives ALL sins at confession, even ones you don’t mention, as long as you are truly repentant. You only bring up forgotten sins to clear your own conscience after having remembered. Withholding a sin with deliberate forethought when you go to confession is a different matter entirely, and is a sign that either you aren’t truly repentant for that sin or are committing a new sin out of fear by lying to God.

If you think something requires more detail, just elaborate next time and say you thought you needed to mention it again.

Regardless of circumstances, ask the priest if you’re being scrupulous and see what he says. He may say it was important for you to have elaborated with more detail, or he may tell you that you’re worrying over nothing. The priest will know better than us.

 

[Gerard_Nadal]

**Shaun,

I don’t know how dogmatic this is, but it seems to me that you are expressing a need to fully vet these issues with a Priest in Confession. It’s not a bad idea to do so, if this helps with coming to terms with your sins and working through the remorse you obviously feel.

The types of porn you mention go far beyond adult heterosexual activity, and point to the need for supportive counseling to keep you not only free from porn and masturbation, but to help heal the wounds that gave rise to this behavior in the first place, and the wounds arising from engaging that behavior.

By all means talk out whatever you need to in confession and counseling. Receive the Eucharist frequently, and be good to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up. That’s already been done. You’re now in the season of healing and growth.

You may wish to hire an expert to clean your computer, or just back up your files and trash the old computer and buy a new one. Child porn is a felony crime. So is possession, even if it has been deleted, but not actually erased.

God Bless.**

 

[Lethe]

I’m no priest and I’ve never studied theology, but I’d liken a sexual attraction to children as a mortal sin**;** and I’ll go one step further**:** IMO full blown male homosexuality and full blown pedophilia is demon possession.

I’m shocked that people can equate paedophilia and homosexual sex… They are worlds apart, maybe in Catholicism, equal sins, but paedophilia is sex with children who are too young to consent or do not understand what they are doing and how much it may mess them up mentally. They may well actually be forced into it. Sex between two consenting adults is a completely different story. Surely homosexual sex is more equal to fornication, which all porn probably portrays anyway.

 

[me_again]

I’m shocked that people can equate paedophilia and homosexual sex… They are worlds apart, maybe in Catholicism, equal sins, but paedophilia is sex with children who are too young to consent or do not understand what they are doing and how much it may mess them up mentally. They may well actually be forced into it. Sex between two consenting adults is a completely different story. Surely homosexual sex is more equal to fornication, which all porn probably portrays anyway.

IMO there are different levels or degrees of sin; and pedophilia and male homosexuality are the highest degrees of that sort of sin. * Pedophilia - a sexual attraction to children. If a man is sexually attracted to children, then he’s possessed. That kind of attraction isn’t natural and isn’t from the Lord. God didn’t design us that way. IMO full blown pedophilia is demon possession.
.

• Male homosexuality - a sexual attraction to other men. That kind of attraction isn’t natural and isn’t from the Lord. God didn’t design us that way. IMO full blown male homosexuality is demon possession.
  Both are equally heinous, while pedophilia is obviously worse.

Are there different degrees of mortal sin? When we go to criminal court, are there different degrees of criminal violations that will result in different degrees of sanctioning? IMO the answer to both questions is yes. Conversely, sin is sin is sin – and sin will kill us, regardless of the degree.

 

[Neithan]

As far as I know - and I am not an authority on the matter - we do not need to confess the specifics of what kind of pornography was viewed. Child pornography, because it involves such grave scandal and corruption of innocence (see cathechism), could be a special case here. With that said, it would be strongly advisable to discuss the kind of pornography with a spiritual director, especially if it has to do with something as heinous as child abuse.

IMO there are different levels or degrees of sin; and pedophilia and male homosexuality are the highest degrees of that sort of sin.

• Pedophilia - a sexual attraction to children. If a man is sexually attracted to children, then he’s possessed. That kind of attraction isn’t natural and isn’t from the Lord. God didn’t design us that way. IMO full blown pedophilia is demon possession.
  .
• Male homosexuality - a sexual attraction to other men. That kind of attraction isn’t natural and isn’t from the Lord. God didn’t design us that way. IMO full blown male homosexuality is demon possession.

Both are equally heinous, while pedophilia is obviously worse.

Are there different degrees of mortal sin? When we go to criminal court, are there different degrees of criminal violations that will result in different degrees of sanctioning? IMO the answer to both questions is yes. Conversely, sin is sin is sin – and sin will kill us, regardless of the degree.

You may be confusing *possession *with oppression. While I fully agree that a person who feels sexual compulsions for prepubescent children would have some oppressive dark spirit affecting them, I would not remove all responsibility from them by saying they are truly possessed. A truly possessed person cannot even be held accountable for their actions. Full-blown possession is extremely rare.

 

[Celtic_FC]

The internet is a sewer that stinks to no end. I really want to get rid of it, but I actually can do things on it that aren’t sinful.