Pornography about someone else

[rbiel]

I’m working on a friends computer.
It was her son’s computer be has gone away to prison for 1-2 years.
He is around 21/22 years of age.

Anyhow the son is allowing the mother to use his notebook or she now pretty much owns it due to spending all of her money on lawyer fees for him.
As he has just went to prison, and is transferring and (name removed by moderator)rocessing there is not much communication at present.

She complained that she couldnt uninstall or install software on the computer as she only had access to the guest account on the notebook. So she gave it to me work on.

To make a long story short, I gained access to the main account on the computer by illictly setting the password to blank. Found tons of pornography to include an almost equal amt. of gay pornography.
I cleaned it out(a dirty job) and will soon return the notebook back to the mother.
The ‘son’ is an adult of 21/22 years of age in prison(all jokes aside).
Its probably not known that he is gay or attracted to men…he has a child out of wedlock with his girlfriend.

My predicament is a morality question : Do I say nothing? Do I tell everything?

 

[Trishie]

You poor soul, having to wade through that. I don’t know the morality but as a mother I’d want to know in order to pray regarding that, but also because I would wish to see what counselling and help could be obtained for the son.
At the same time, the mother is already coping with more than enough.

In your position I wouldn’t know what to do, but it sure puts you into a position to know how much prayer and penance may be required to obtain conversion for this young man. This may be God’s take on things for the present? You are in a unique position to pray for him, and we who read your post would do well to pray for the young man and his mother also…and for us to pray that you’ll know if and when to tell the young man’s mother.

 

[jpjd]

I would tell the mother that you found porn on the computer, but that you deleted it all. And leave it at that.

You don’t KNOW that the guy is gay, so to speculate and cause the mother to speculate accomplishes nothing; in addition, the guy is an adult and these kinds of personal details are no longer her right to know.

 

[broconsul]

What good does saying, “I deleted all of your son’s gay porn from the computer” do for the mother?

I don’t think it does any good at all. I wouldn’t say anything.

 

[Debora123]

Don’t say anything. 1. It’s none of your business, 2. the mother is coping with enough.

 

[jpjd]

What good does saying, “I deleted all of your son’s gay porn from the computer” do for the mother?

I don’t think it does any good at all. I wouldn’t say anything.

My thought was that he would not mention that some of it was gay porn, just porn. Most people assume porn is hetero unless told otherwise, don’t they?

On second thought, I could agree that there is no point in telling the mother even that much.

 

[stephe1987]

I agree. I don’t think she needs to know anything about the porn. He is an adult and probably had some kind of addiction. Let it go and hope he found Christ.

 

[TimothyH]

Please understand that this will be slighty difficult for me to say publically and that I wish to pass off my first hand experience to you.

As someone who was severely addicted to porn for many years but thanks to the sacrament of confession and Christ’s mercy has been completely free (praise God!) for many years, and as one who works in the computer industry, my professional and personal recommendation is to wipe the system and reload the operating system and programs.

The computer needs to be wiped clean and everything installed fresh. Porn addicts will go to any website, regardless of risk and these sites are filled with bots, trojans and all manner or malicious software. I don’t care how good your antivirus is or how many anti spyware programs you run, you must assume the computer is compromised in the worst way and wipe it. There is garbage on that machine that you will never be able to remove. The woman must not be doing online banking or online shopping on this machine. There is also a legal liability here, if the young man has done anything illegal or immoral with the computer and both she and you have touched it.

Wipe and load. That is both my professional and personal recommendation.

Regarding the mother, I would call or write the young man and ask him to come clean, not only about the porn, but about the other things which he is probably hiding from people who love him and whome he has hurt. Doing so is a necessary part of his recovery and he must do this, try to repair the damage. I know this is not what most people are telling you here but I feel strongly that the people closest to him must know. If the man will not do it, I would tell his mother myself.

1. It is your business. Your hands were on the computer that was used for gay porn, might have been used for child porn and who knows what else. God has placed you in the middle of this and so consider why.
2. The mother is coping with a lot but need to know if someone in her house is using porn and the nature and severity of it. She cannot allow someone to use gay porn (and do who knows what else) now or when her son gets out of prison.
3. For many addicts, God’s call to come to him is only heard after they are broken - brought to the lowest point in their life.

I would say that you have a moral obligation to tell her. For now, tell the woman that there are virus’ on the computer that you can’t get off and help her wipe and load. Approach the son and if he won’t come clean then wait for things to settle a little and tell her the truth gently, in the presence of a priest or deacon, even a protestant pastor if that is all that is available to you.

Ignoring it helps no one and you never have to wonder if you did the right thing.

-Tim-

 

[Charlemagne_II]

I agree with the last poster.

When her son gets out of prison, he will get home to discover that his computer has been cleaned of all pornography. He will then suspect that his mother must have had it cleaned and knows everything. So if he suspects that, it might as well be true. Tell her what you have done, and that you need to totally wipe and reload because of virus. Then suggest to her that her son needs serious counseling, either while in prison or when he gets out, and that he is not to have access to the computer until after he has gone through the counseling. In fact, on second thought, I would suggest she remove the computer from her home by the time he is released so that he will know he has no right to computer use so long as he lives with her. If he is determined to continue with porn addiction by computer, he will have to do it outside the home. Then all the cost and risk is on him, not his mother.

In the meantime, pray with his mother for his immortal soul.

 

[someoneorother]

I’m in the camp that nothing should be said.

It sounds to me like you might be thinking that maybe the guy has been cheating on his partner with a man, but that might be assuming too much. What if the guy looked at gay porn, but would never intend to act on it? Would it trouble you as much then? Because if all there was was hetero-porn, I’m wondering if you’d still feel as strongly about this dilemma.

So I can understand your concern for the man’s partner, but you didn’t say that there is hard evidence of cheating outside of the porn going on, so if there isn’t, no need to stir up any innuendo there by telling his mother.

In any case, you’ve overstepped a privacy boundary, and anyone confronting the son about it, whether it’s you or the mother or anyone else would probably just make him resentful that someone hacked in to his computer in the first place and started opening files that no one else was meant to see (and I think you shouldn’t have been opening these files anyway, as I can’t think of any reason that you needed to in order to fix the computer, unless they just opened themselves when you started up the account, which in that case I can understand).

By all means, say a prayer for the son, but if you’re not a close relative or anything like that, and you didn’t see any hard evidence of anything illegal being done, then you’re just gonna stir up things unnecessarily if you tell the mother. So I say don’t.

 

[someoneorother]

I agree with the last poster.

When her son gets out of prison, he will get home to discover that his computer has been cleaned of all pornography. He will then suspect that his mother must have had it cleaned and knows everything.

Not necessarily. The mother isn’t the one who cleaned out the computer and can tell the son as much.

 

[puzzleannie]

I’m My predicament is a morality question : Do I say nothing? Do I tell everything?

you came by the knowledge of another person’s apparently sinful acts by accident so you behave as if you had accidentally overheard a sacramental confession, as if you had never heard it.

 

[raaucoin]

years ago I had a small business with desk top computer and my personal lap-top. I had a small staff of 5. They would frequently ask to get on the internet to pay bills, check e-mails etc. I didn’t have a problem with that because we were a rather close knit group.

Well, as time went on I found all kinds of “trash” on my computers. It was not me who did it.-- How do you know this young man didn’t loan his computer to someone else?

If it was him (I admit a good possibility) how do we know that the Lord didn’t "bring"him to jail so that he’d have some time to build a relationship with Him. If he does find the Lord and repent of all his sins- it would be a shame for him to go home and have the added problems to deal with rather than focusing on the Lord and starting over.

If you have any relationship with him, why not go to him in Christian charity, tell him of your concerns, remind him of the loving mercy and forgiveness of Jesus and then leave the ball in his court.

“Do unto others as you would have done unto you”

 

[dcb188]

Why shield the mother from the Truth?
If you saw a friend of yours cheating with another man or woman, would you remain silent and let the innocent spouse stay in ignorance, saying it is none of your business?
Aren’t we all obligated to walk in truth? Aren’t we part of deception when it is practiced and we say nothing? Isn’t this part of why the world is the way it is, because we don’t think anything is our “business”?
If someone cheats a friend out of 200.00 do we stay quiet, so we won’t “tell” on the person who cheated our friend? What kind of a friend are we? Is ignorance truly bliss?
Here is a better question. Why are we afraid to disclose the truth, to stand up for the truth? Why are we timid in this area?
Do we know why? I think it is because we don’t want to rock the boat, at all, ever. So the boat just keeps heading for the rocks ahead, because we don’t want to offend anyone for any reason at any time.
We lack character, in other words, when we remain silent about things that are wrong.

 

[BKulash_eski]

Is this woman religious? I would possibly pray with her about the whole situation. Ask her if visiting or even writing a letter to her son would be acceptable, and convey my thoughts to him personally, it may let him know that there are more than just his mom concerned for him.

 

[someoneorother]

Why shield the mother from the Truth?

Maybe we don’t know the whole truth here. Like a poster above said:

years ago I had a small business with desk top computer and my personal lap-top. I had a small staff of 5. They would frequently ask to get on the internet to pay bills, check e-mails etc. I didn’t have a problem with that because we were a rather close knit group.

Well, as time went on I found all kinds of “trash” on my computers. It was not me who did it.-- How do you know this young man didn’t loan his computer to someone else?

If it was him (I admit a good possibility) how do we know that the Lord didn’t "bring"him to jail so that he’d have some time to build a relationship with Him. If he does find the Lord and repent of all his sins- it would be a shame for him to go home and have the added problems to deal with rather than focusing on the Lord and starting over.

If you have any relationship with him, why not go to him in Christian charity, tell him of your concerns, remind him of the loving mercy and forgiveness of Jesus and then leave the ball in his court.

“Do unto others as you would have done unto you”

Sounds like a compassionate response to me, without ignoring the truth.

 

[dcb188]

Why shield the mother from what we know? Same reason things happen on the street and no one gets involved. Doesn’t concern me, way of thinking.
What if the person found fifty thousand dollars in cash belonging to the son? We would disclose that in a heartbeat because that would be a GOOD thing, a positive thing.
But things that are unpalatable? Nope, we keep it a secret, keeps us very uninvolved.

 

[rbiel]

years ago I had a small business with desk top computer and my personal lap-top. I had a small staff of 5. They would frequently ask to get on the internet to pay bills, check e-mails etc. I didn’t have a problem with that because we were a rather close knit group.

Well, as time went on I found all kinds of “trash” on my computers. It was not me who did it.-- How do you know this young man didn’t loan his computer to someone else?

If it was him (I admit a good possibility) how do we know that the Lord didn’t "bring"him to jail so that he’d have some time to build a relationship with Him. If he does find the Lord and repent of all his sins- it would be a shame for him to go home and have the added problems to deal with rather than focusing on the Lord and starting over.

If you have any relationship with him, why not go to him in Christian charity, tell him of your concerns, remind him of the loving mercy and forgiveness of Jesus and then leave the ball in his court.

“Do unto others as you would have done unto you”

I’m a degreed computer professional.
Some have said I should wipe the disk but as the notebook doesnt have a restore partition for the windows vista license that it has, no disks either. I could downgrade to XP with a MSDN no license needed disk( I have this), but this model has driver problems reverting back to XP as others have related in tech forums.
This is all being done on the cheap, my reason for being involved and being helpful to save some money for her and get her a needed working notebook.

So let me put it out there I need a Windows Vista Home Premium disk or iso link…I have the license/ser. no… It would be appreciated.

Barring that, as of right now I’m pretty confident with the machine it has been scanned by several of my preferred anti-virus/security suite apps. and I will instruct the mother to do banking and such with the aid of a virtual keyboard within Kaspersky. Originally when I reset the admin password and gained access to the machine I found a 70gb hard drive FULL maybe 1 gb to spare with more porn , video filters, divx software, and other impertinent things than you could shake a stick at. How do I know he didnt lend this to someone else? --short answer: I’m a smart cookie!

I’m not a big subscriber to the mind your own business philosophy, its mostly a secular mantra and doesnt help solve moral failings and problems.
“Bad things happen when good people do nothing”–being a subscriber to this philosophy however, leads me on a path to figure out a better solution other than ‘mind my own business’.

As to whether I tell the mother or others in the family, I have yet to determine.
The mother is my wifes sister. Right now I’m the only one in the know.
I was hoping for some rather Catholic-oriented advice here. I posted in the apologetics/moral theology section, but quite a bit of it is a mixed bag of secular idioms about minding my own business and that I shouldnt have looked at the files, or to another extreme of minding my own business-- that I should be a Catholic prayer warrior to save this persons soul and say nothing. I say the rosary every day for some up to 20 or more intentions most of them not remembered or enunciated at prayer time, but I have not graduated to prayer warrior status and all that that entails–which is quite considerable, if you are in the know. My best hope is to bring the mother into this process, a situation where it is very doubtful that her son will ever go to heaven, she is Christian.

In addition there are troubling issues for the near future, as when this young adult gets out of prison within 1+ years, its very likely his grandparents will help out by allowing the ‘gay ex-con’ to be sharing a room with my college attending step-son over at his grandparents(his cousin) , this arrangement has happened over there before —short term and sharing the bed…not my idea of accomodations over there…but everyone seems rather oblivious to the actual situation. Things arent usually this ‘shared’ even for the armed services.

The other issue is that the mother is my wives sister and she is a former marginal ex-Catholic and now a marginal or better Christian at the very shallow, but fairly upright Calvary Chapel. As I noted earlier, it is my best hope for his mother to become a prayer warrior for him. My goal was to helpfully tell the mother and leave everything in her hands and not tell anyone else. My wife is a suffering prayer warrior(attacked by the devil, et al) so I may have to tell her and let her direct the rest.
This may be the best but her plate is full with health and surgery problems at present.

Now you are all more up to date on this situation.
But not fully, there are even more troubling aspects to this, but I’m not writing a book, although this came close.
I’ll let the rest of you ‘Dear Abbys’ and Dr Lauras’ comment, but I am really hoping for something that can be authentically catholic in scope, intention and purpose. I dont really expect any of you to have ‘the’ answer, its something I’m going to have to figure out on my own and in the end if my solution is ‘mind my own business’ it would be through a process of eliminating all other routes first.
Thanks to all.

 

[dcb188]

They’re not really “idioms”, they are advice, which is what you asked for.
Ultimately it is your choice, naturally, but you requested assistance in deciding, and that is what your readers did, they gave you assistance, they were not pious platitudes, they were concrete get in your face truths, such as, disclosing things you would probably want disclosed to you if you were in the position of the mom.

 

[broconsul]

Why shield the mother from the Truth?
If you saw a friend of yours cheating with another man or woman, would you remain silent and let the innocent spouse stay in ignorance, saying it is none of your business?
Aren’t we all obligated to walk in truth? Aren’t we part of deception when it is practiced and we say nothing? Isn’t this part of why the world is the way it is, because we don’t think anything is our “business”?
If someone cheats a friend out of 200.00 do we stay quiet, so we won’t “tell” on the person who cheated our friend? What kind of a friend are we? Is ignorance truly bliss?
Here is a better question. Why are we afraid to disclose the truth, to stand up for the truth? Why are we timid in this area?
Do we know why? I think it is because we don’t want to rock the boat, at all, ever. So the boat just keeps heading for the rocks ahead, because we don’t want to offend anyone for any reason at any time.
We lack character, in other words, when we remain silent about things that are wrong.

Like someone else has already said, we don’t know the truth. We only know what might be the case. There is no reason to start damaging rumors over something that may not be true.

Even assuming that the owner of the computer downloaded the porn, your hypothetical about cheating a friend out of money is an inappropriate comparison. In that situation, there is a remediable offense committed against another person. In this situation, there is no remedy and there is no one offended but God and the man who downloaded it.

Bringing the porn up to the mother is nothing but gossip.