Pornography and the Erosion of Human Dignity - Auspice Maria Episode 18 with Bishop James Ruggieri
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Transcript:
Welcome back to the Auspice Maria podcast. I’m Bishop James Ruggieri of the Diocese of Portland in Maine. Today we take up a difficult but urgent topic: pornography and the erosion of human dignity.
But before, I just want to invoke the Holy Spirit to guide this podcast and also to touch the hearts of listeners. As we pray: Holy Spirit, come upon us, inspire us, move us, help us to be persevering and resilient in our commitment to you. And we ask your blessing upon us always, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
So, pornography is not just a private sin hidden away in secret. It has become a cultural wound—public, pervasive, and deeply destructive. It touches our homes, our schools, and our children. Pornography distorts desire, damages relationships, erodes intimacy, and consumes human dignity.
This topic is not simply about individual morality. Instead, it is about the health of our families, our friendships, our vocations, and our very ability to see one another as persons made in God’s image.
I’d like to start with a couple of scripture passages. This is from the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 5, verses 27 to 28. Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Now, the Greek word Jesus uses for the phrase “looks at a woman with lust” does not mean "noticing beauty." It really means something deeper. It means looking in order to possess, to consume. Lust is not love. Lust is consumption. It reduces a human being, created in the image of God, to an object.
Jesus reveals that sin begins in the heart. When our gaze becomes possessive, when desire shifts from communion to consumption, the human person is degraded.
Saint Paul, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 4, verses 3 to 5, writes, "This is the will of God, your holiness, that you refrain from immorality, that each of you know how to acquire a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion, as do the Gentiles who do not know God."
Again, those opening words to this passage, "This is the will of God, your holiness." So here in this passage from 1 Thessalonians, Paul places sexuality within holiness. This is a key point to emphasize: knowing God transforms the way we desire.
Again, a key point to emphasize: knowing God, having a relationship with God, desiring to grow in that relationship with God transforms, converts, the way we desire. So instead of taking, we learn to give. Instead of consuming, we learn to honor.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 2354, is very clear. This is a summary of that paragraph: Pornography is gravely offensive because it perverts the conjugal act, stripping it of dignity, reducing participants to objects of pleasure. It injures all involved; the actors, the viewers, and the wider community.
St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body enriches our teaching in understanding the wound of pornography. He talks about human intimacy. Human intimacy, in his teaching he says, is meant for communion, not consumption.
According to St. John Paul II, the human body is not just flesh and bone. It is a visible sign that reveals the invisible mystery of the person. And in a deeper sense, it reveals God’s plan of love.
Now, pornography falsifies this meaning, turning the body into a product to be bought and sold. As St. John Paul II taught, "The body, in fact, and only it, is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God." That quote is from a general audience of our Holy Father, February 20, 1980.
St. John Paul II further insisted that human sexuality finds its true meaning in the logic of gift. He said at another general audience in November of 1979, "Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. He is in fact from the beginning male and female."
So in other words, our bodies speak a language of self-gift and communion. Pornography silences that language and replaces it with the lie of use, contradicting the very sacramental meaning of the body.
I’d like to just offer some data that is really disturbing. In the United States, pornography is alarmingly common and begins early. A 2022 survey by Common Sense Media found that 73% of teens ages 13 to 17 had seen pornography online.
More than half—54%—had seen it by age 13. And 15% said they had first seen pornography by age 10 or younger. A 2023 study reported that 68.4% of adolescents had been exposed to pornography, and 42% of youth ages 10 to 17 said they had intentionally viewed it. Many reported stumbling upon it unintentionally through social media or pop-ups.
So think about this for a second in light of these statistics—which today very well could be higher. At the very age when young people are learning who they are and how to love, unfortunately, they are being formed by distorted images that teach bodies can be used and intimacy is about consumption. That is very disturbing.
So, dear parents, here’s a warning. Much of this happens through unsupervised use of cell phones and electronic devices. A phone or tablet is not neutral. It can be a tool for learning and connection, but without guidance it becomes an open door to exploitation.
I’d like to look a little bit at the ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and then talk a little bit about Saint Thomas Aquinas, who kind of does some synthesis with the ancient philosopher Aristotle.
Plato says in the dialogue Symposium that Eros, human desire, is as a ladder of love. He describes Eros as beginning with attraction to one body, then to all bodies, then to beautiful souls, to wisdom, and ultimately to beauty itself—the transcendental beauty itself, the divine.
So desire, according to Plato in this dialogue, is meant to ascend. Unfortunately, pornography halts that ascent. It traps Eros at the very lowest level, freezing desire in consumption and preventing it from rising to communion or contemplation.
Aristotle offers a different but equally important insight. In his work Nicomachean Ethics, he identifies three kinds of friendship: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of virtue. The first two, utility and pleasure, are limited and unstable. Only the third, friendship of virtue, endures, because it is grounded in willing the good of the other for their own sake.
True intimacy for Aristotle belongs to this highest friendship. In marriage and close companionship, love is about mutual good, shared life, and growth in virtue. Pornography undermines this possibility in two ways.
First, it reduces people to instruments of pleasure. That trains the heart away from willing the good of the other and toward self-gratification. Second, it erodes the very habits that friendship requires: patience, honesty, and responsibility.
Pornography offers instant gratification without cost or reciprocity. It creates a pattern of inequality and use, rather than equality and goodwill. As a result, those who consume pornography find it harder to form and sustain genuine friendships.
They are practicing, repeatedly, a relationship of pleasure divorced from the discipline of virtue. Over time, this weakens their capacity for the mutuality that real friendship demands. Aristotle would recognize pornography as an enemy of friendship, corroding the very relationships that hold marriages, families, and societies together.
Now, St. Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian. Aquinas integrates these insights and brings them into the light of Christ. In natural law, intimacy is ordered to children and mutual help, but grace elevates this. In marriage, intimacy becomes a sacrament, a sign of Christ’s spousal love for the Church.
For Aquinas, lust is a vice because it removes reason and charity from desire. Pornography magnifies lust by forming habits of use rather than self-gift. Chastity, by contrast, integrates desire. Charity elevates it. In this way, intimacy becomes not consumption, but communion—an image of divine love itself.
So what could be a pastoral response to this wound of pornography? Well, if scripture calls lust “adultery of the heart,” Plato shows us why: lust halts the ascent of love. Aristotle shows how it undermines friendship. Aquinas shows how grace heals desire, restoring it to communion.
So pornography is therefore not only a moral problem, but a crisis of intimacy and relationship. It trains the heart to consume, not to give. It fractures the ability to be friends, to form marriages, and to live in community.
So what is our response? First, honesty. We must name pornography as a serious evil distortion of love.
Second, compassion. Many listeners may already be struggling. Some may feel trapped or ashamed. Please hear this: the Lord does not condemn you. He calls you to freedom. The Church offers confession, counseling, accountability, and healing.
And third, conviction. Parents, please do not hand your children unsupervised devices without guidance. Families must talk openly, set boundaries, and witness to a healthier vision. Young people need not only warnings, but also hope, a vision of intimacy that is beautiful, holy, and joyful.
Ultimately, each of us must reclaim the virtue of a pure heart. This is not repression; it is freedom. It is the ability to see rightly, to love rightly, and to honor one another as children of God.
I’d like to just name some resources that may be of help to those who are listening. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops provides valuable resources to help. On their website you will find, for example, the Clean of Heart series, pastoral guides, and reflections. You’ll also find help for those struggling: references to recovery programs, accountability resources, and support for families.
There is also a pastoral letter, Create in Me a Clean Heart that offers clarity and hope on this topic of pornography. I encourage you to visit the bishops’ website: usccb.org. Again, usccb.org to access these resources.
So in conclusion, pornography is not just a private failing. It is a cultural wound that erodes intimacy, undermines friendship, and consumes dignity. Yet Christ calls us to purity of heart, not as a burden, but as a path to freedom and joy.
So maybe some things for us all to reflect upon. They may not apply directly, but I think they’re worthy of reflection in light of our society and the wound of pornography that afflicts us:
How is pornography shaping the way I see others?
How might I take steps, whether filters, accountability, or deeper prayer, to guard my heart and to restore my vision?
And how can I extend compassion to those who are struggling?
Let us pray for courage to guard our hearts, compassion for those caught in struggle, and conviction to witness to the beauty of authentic intimacy. May we learn to see one another not as objects, but as beloved children of God.
Thank you for joining me, and please let’s commend this podcast and all of this effort to the prayers and the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
