Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the Catholic Church, Father Hermann Backhaus, a priest of the Diocese of Münster, Germany, proves you wrong. In a recent interview, Backhaus said that consuming pornography “can have a relieving effect” on celibate clergy.
A priest recommends pornography to fellow priests? It sounds strange at first—even a bit queer. But if you read below the headlines, you discover that Fr. Backhaus is also a psychologist. And, of course, psychologists speak with authority—even on moral issues.
At least, that’s what Fr. Backhaus seems to believe. He is quite proud of being a psychologist, and mentions the fact several times during the interview. For example: “I not only have a degree in psychology, but also a graduate degree in moral theology. But in our institution, I work as a psychologist who is also a priest—and not the other way around.”
In other words, for Fr. Backhaus, the degree in psychology trumps the degree in moral theology. “As a psychologist,” he said, “I do not judge or condemn porn consumption.”
Being a psychologist, however, does not prevent him from judging those who do judge porn consumption as wrong. Even Pope Francis comes in for criticism for having recently warned that porn provides the devil an entry point into the soul. “To bring the devil in connection with pornography,” says Backhaus, “is a very strong statement. I don’t know if Francis is not rather working against his intention than promoting it.”
As Fr. Backhaus correctly discerns, Francis’s main intention all along has been to promote a permissive attitude toward sexual activity. He may from time to time say something to pacify traditional Catholics, but his real intentions are revealed in his hirings and firings. LGBT-supportive prelates are invariably promoted, while traditional clergy are regularly demoted.
If Francis really believed that pornography was a danger to the soul, he would immediately prohibit Backhaus from counseling priests, and send him off to a remote monastery for a few years of prayer and contemplation– sans cell phone.
What’s much more likely, however, is that, like other activists for sexual permissiveness such as Fr. James Martin, Fr. Backhaus will be invited to meet with Francis in a private audience. Shortly after, we can expect to see him given an influential post—perhaps in the Dicastery for Culture and Education. That institution is now headed by Francis appointee Cardinal Jose Tolentino de Mendonca, who, according to Rorate Caeli, “was well known in the Portuguese Church for being the absolutely most fabulous fabuloso of the whole fabulousness.”
One of Fr. Backhaus’s chief concerns is that priests are often lonely and overstressed. His solution to the problem is more pornography and more masturbation for their “relieving effect.” At the Dicastery of Education, he would have the time and resources for further research in the area. Perhaps the final result would be a patented product available on Amazon. It could be called “Father Backhaus’s fast relief technique for overstressed clergy.”
Meanwhile, despite what Fr. Backhaus may think, other psychologists are doubtful about the beneficial effects of pornography. For many people in our society, pornography has become a serious addiction and one of the leading causes of divorce as well. As with other forms of addiction—such as drug addiction—repeated use leads to higher tolerance. Just as drug users eventually seek higher doses or more powerful substances, porn addicts also seek stronger stimulation–often in depictions of multiple-partner sex acts, and/or sado-masochistic sex.
In the real world, moreover, pornography leads not to stress relief but to dissatisfaction with one’s spouse, increased marital tension, and an increased incidence of marital infidelity. In fact, even in marriages where there is no actual infidelity, pornography use is experienced by both spouses—the guilty one and the aggrieved one—as an act of infidelity.
One supposes that clergy who consume pornography would also experience it as an act of infidelity. Catholic clergy take vows of chastity, and Catholic teaching explicitly condemns pornography and masturbation as sins against chastity. If a priest has a healthy conscience, we would expect him to be bothered by these infidelities, and try harder to overcome them.
On the other hand, Fr. Backhaus wants priests to deaden their consciences and give in to their temptations. After all, he says, pornography is “something that is normal in our society.” And he notes that “about 95 percent of men and 90 percent of women admit during counseling that they have had experiences with masturbation.”
Fr. Backhaus ought to ask for a tuition refund for his program in moral theology. That’s because he’s making very basic mistakes in moral reasoning. He confuses “normality” with morality. He reasons that if everybody’s doing it, it must be okay. But, as every parent knows, following the crowd is not always good advice. About 100 percent of men and women have told lies at one time or another in their lives. I guess that makes lying “normal” in our society but it certainly doesn’t make it okay.
The “everybody’s doing it” argument usually goes along with the “let’s be realistic” argument. And sure enough, Fr. Backhaus uses that argument too. Citing his authority as a psychologist, he says “we start from real life, that is reality.” He then proceeds to cite the data on the prevalence of masturbation.
What Backhaus forgets, however, is that owning slaves once seemed perfectly normal, natural, and acceptable. Meanwhile, those who thought that slavery should be abolished were told that they had to be realistic.
But being realistic about human nature is to recognize that humans are not purely natural creatures who can safely follow whatever impulses “come naturally.” Rather, according to Christian tradition and teaching, people are meant to live on both the natural and supernatural level. And the proper order of things is for the supernatural to take precedence over the natural.
But through their sin, Adam and Eve upset the proper order of things. According to the Catholic Catechism, their sin was “an abuse of the freedom” (387) given by God, by which they fell from their original state of holiness into a state of sin.
Prior to the Fall, man exercised a “mastery of self” (377). After the Fall, however, “the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered” (400), and man becomes a slave to sin.
One can dismiss all of this as nothing more than an ancient myth, but it’s difficult to deny that the ancient “myth” fits the facts of human nature more closely than the vast majority of philosophical and psychological explanations.
After forgiving the woman caught in adultery, Jesus tells the Jews who had believed in him, “Truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8.34). And this is exactly the way many repeat sinners experience their sins. The alcoholic knows that he shouldn’t take another drink, but he can’t help himself. The porn addict knows that his habit is damaging his marriage, but he can’t resist the temptation. The verbally abusive husband knows he shouldn’t shout at his wife, but he can’t control his impulses.
In short, habitual sin takes away our freedom not to sin, and we truly become slaves to sin.
Herr Father Backhaus thinks that by encouraging priests to watch porn (or in some cases, more porn), he is freeing them both from stress and guilt. But in reality, he is setting them on a road that may lead them into spiritual slavery. At that point, other, more mature priests and psychologists will need to be called in to see if they can undo the damage.
The bad news is that priests like Fr. Backhaus are no longer rare exceptions in the Church. As anyone who pays attention can now see, the Catholic establishment is getting wackier by the day.
The good news is that the nuttiness has become so extreme and so visible that more and more Catholics are noticing. And that includes more of those who can actually do something about the situation.
In my next piece, I plan to detail some of the good news. Stay tuned.
It isn’t new. You just discovered a part of this rot that slipped out from under the carpet. It is an open joke among clergy and church staff (I was an attorney for a Catholic school for 14 years while the pastor carried on an affair and gave divorce advice to my wife).
PS The Bishops are not “shocked.” They are in on it and actively support it, one Bishop in Florida having the balls to tell me the pastor could forgive his own sins.
I never understood celibacy. Seems to me to be the reason for the problem. I can’t see how it is beneficial.
There are many purposes for celebicy in the Catholic priesthood.
1. Probably the most important one is that as a priest, his first and foremost duty is to God, the Catholic Church, and of course his flock of souls. If he had a family, he would either be neglecting those duties or his family – he could not serve 2 masters.
2. Without celibacy, he would have to get married because in the Catholic Church it is a sin to have sex outside of marriage – also see #1 above..
3. In the Catholic Church, everyone has their own vocation and with those vocations come responsibilities- priest are a vocation (see #1 for their responsibilities), and married life is also a vocation and as I mentioned above, a married person’s responsibility is to their family.
4. Priests ARE human, subject to the same temptations as lay people. Removing celibacy introduces human temptations they don’t need.
These are just some reasons and there is Catholic Doctrines that explain this further and more concisely.
I never understood Anorexia Nervosa either but I have no doubt it comes from the tragic sense of life. Just like veganism, rejecting animal protein, does.
I never understood Objectivism but I have no doubt it comes from the tragic need to control others, endlessly lecture others and bag on Christians.
He’s a pervert, nothing more. Just a horrible evil person impersonating a priest with no interest in God. He should be fired, defrocked or whatever is necessary to remove him (a demon) from preaching.
From priest to pimp.
Sounds about right. Just keeping the faith with the debauched pope frank and his homosexual buddies.
All filthy Catholics will be burnt at the stake,
What this article also may have not mentioned is that this priest’s assertions in this area will lead or most likely has lead others to commit mortal sins. Since sex outside of marriage is a mortal sin (yes, sex with oneself is sex outside of marriage since it doesn’t involve a spouse), he is advocating mortal sins.
remove yourself from the pagan catholic church. they are an abomination. reciting prayers over and over as an act of repentance is not how you are forgiven. confessing to a priest is NOT how you are forgiven. weekly communion desensitizes you to the importance of communion. faith ALONE is how you are saved, NOT faith AND works. Priests do NOT need to be unmarried, that is a perverted religious rule made by man. homosexuality IS sin as is porn. the catholic church is FILLED with pedo’s and priests who are not believers. LEAVE this cult!
269 teachers have been arrested on child sex crimes in the past 9 months…. those who prey on children work where they can be close to those they seek to prey upon.
Prior to the Fall, man exercised a “mastery of self” (377). After the Fall, however, “the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered” (400), and man becomes a slave to sin.”
Whatever Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden they were not adult human beings with fully functioning minds. They had no “self”, they had no thinking minds, they had no knowledge of good or evil until they ate the Fruit of Knowledge.
Maybe they were three year old children in adult bodies or maybe they were automatons; mere animal pets of Yahweh. But they were certainly not fully conscious and self-conscious adult human beings.
For Yahweh to condemn three year old children in adult bodies or simpleton-automaton pets he created for disobeying him is rather ludicrous.
“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.” – Gene Roddenberry
That’s a very simplistic understanding of the Eden story, whether one accepts the account as literal or not. Their innocence shouldn’t be confused with childishness, nor knowledge of sin be equated with being an “adult.”
Voluntary, life-long, celibacy is a moral ABOMINATION!
It’s sick and tragic. It is a rejection of life itself. I have no doubt that it comes from a tragic sense of life.
If life on earth is the standard of morality, if the pursuit of happiness (happiness, not pleasure, pleasure and happiness are not the same thing) is the standard of a moral life, then sex like food is a GOOD. Sex like food is a VALUE to be enjoyed morally in its proper way.
The life-long rejection of sex, under any and all circumstances, under any conditions, even morally proper conditions, is no different than the emotional malady of Anorexia Nervosa. A life-long rejection of food (if that were possible) under any and all conditions, is not something to celebrate or admire, not an instance of morality, but a manifestation of the rejection of life, of the good things of life, of a precious value of life.
“The doctrine that man’s sexual capacity belongs to a lower or animal part of his nature . . . is the necessary consequence of the doctrine that man is not an integrated entity, but a being torn apart by two opposite, antagonistic, irreconcilable elements: his body, which is of this earth, and his soul, which is of another, supernatural realm. According to that doctrine, man’s sexual capacity—regardless of how it is exercised or motivated, not merely its abuses, not unfastidious indulgence or promiscuity, but the capacity as such—is sinful or depraved.” – Ayn Rand
With whom are you arguing, THX?
Ah yes, life lessons from one of the most obsessive compulsive people on a comment board ever.
This man isn’t a bona fide Roman Catholic priest; he’s a servant of Satan using his Roman collar as camouflage, or a disguise, as he carries out the Mission his real Master has assigned him, which is to destroy the Church from within.
The purpose of pornography is, and since ancient times has always been, to incite illicit lust.
To make a celibate priest’s already difficult life of self-sacrifice even more difficult by encouraging him to indulge in and be titillated by this temptation is, itself, a Sin.
This “priest” needs to be laicized–“defrocked”–immediately, and sent on his way to follow his proclivities as a “psychologist” in private–not ecclesiastical–practice.
Someone needs to be excommunicated for life
Well, being Jewish I don’t have a dog in this fight, but just to put in my two cents, I do notice that priests were often married throughout the First Millennium and perhaps a bit into the Second. Monks and nuns were celibate, but priests were not necessarily. Being a priest is indeed a lonely job, and perhaps some of these dedicated men should have an intelligent, pious lifelong helpmeet to aid them with their duties and give them a sounding board on their spiritual journey. Maybe it’s again time for priests to be allowed to marry if they wish to.
How hard would it be for a sicko, or even a muslim on the mission to become a priest or start a church to divert the followers?
The Catholic church is responsible for false doctrine, and straying from the God’s word, making her own interpretations of the gospel. She is the one who leads the False religion worldwide, the agent of the Antichrist, the Right hand man. (The False Prophet.). Revelation 19:20 who is the head of the world wide religion. that supports the rule of the Antichrist, the Pope is the likely candidate for this role because he is a Jesuit. Consider the facts. The Pope takes the title of “Vicar of Christ” allows people to call him “Holy Father” and accepts the worship of himself. His title, his name, and his acceptance of worship constitute blasphemy.
The word “vicar” means stand in or “substitute”. Does he consider himself a substitute for Christ?
There is only “One Holy Father”. and that is the Creator of this Universe. John 17:11.
When society rebels against God, absurdity rules.
Romans 1:28. And since they did not see fir to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased min to do what ought not to be done.
Sadly typical for ungodly popery Jesus isn’t even considered, the biggest reason for the Reformation. Read God’s Word in Romans and Galatians and Hebrews (all saying Jesus is better/best, unlike today’s apostates, popish or “protestant”), something that won’t happen with willfully Biblically illiterate popery. So many in it are even so delusional as to want the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary part of the Godhead, idolatrously praying to her instead of Him despite the deceitful δυλια/λατρια game. Thank God she’s so busy faithfully adoring her Lord she can’t hear their faithless perfidy. God save us.