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Published: March 10, 2008

“So much beauty and so much trash”

San Francisco's archbishop will speak to seminarians on evils of pornography

Though he has shown himself tolerant of the openly “gay-friendly” Most Holy Redeemer parish in San Francisco’s Castro District and has permitted Catholic Charities to continue facilitating adoptions by same-sex couples, San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, it appears, is a determined foe of pornography.

Tomorrow, Archbishop Niederauer will address pornography and how it affects human dignity at his alma mater, St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo. "Pornography is evil because it debases the priceless worth and dignity of each human being," said Niederauer, according to the March 7 Tidings, the newspaper of the Los Angeles archdiocese. "On the Internet each day there are 68 million search engine requests for pornography websites, which account for 25 percent of all searches. Seventy percent of men ages 18 to 24 visit pornographic websites each month and children are often first exposed to pornography on the Internet at age 11."

As Bishop of Salt Lake City, Niederauer was chairman of the Utah Coalition Against Pornography. In 2005, he received the Guardian of Light award from the Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City, Utah-based Lighted Candle Society for his efforts to curb pornography.

Last May, Niederauer gave the keynote address at the annual Lighted Candle Society Guardian of Light Awards Dinner in Salt Lake City, according to the Intermountain Catholic, the newspaper of the Salt Lake City diocese. Pointing out that pornography is not a “new challenge to single-hearted human love and to respect for the dignity of human persons and human sexuality,” it has become more pervasive, said Niederauer. It’s not just films and magazines anymore, he said, but “every computer terminal is its pipeline, and cell phones and other hand held devices, many of them marketed to children and young people, literally deliver pornography everywhere, to anyone.”

Pornography, said Niederauer, is extremely harmful. It “assaults human dignity and commodifies people and human sexuality. Porn starves the human soul in its spiritual dimension…. The human person, an irreplaceable gift, becomes a throwaway toy.”

Pornography damages families and social relationships, said Niederauer, “because lust isolates, while love unites… Nor should we ignore the social implications of pornography: it exploits the desperate poor and the innocent young. All too frequently it is associated with, and contributes to, acts of sexual violence or abuse.”

The archbishop criticized Hollywood, saying, “The world of film is capable of so much beauty and so much trash.” This being the case, the public cannot be passive viewers. “Moviegoers can’t be sponges,” said Niederauer. “We need to be able to call good good and evil evil. Just as in our experiences of other media, in watching films we need to become our own best filters...”

Niederauer caused a storm of controversy in 2006 when he admitted in a newspaper interview that he had seen – and apparently enjoyed -- the movie “Brokeback Mountain,” an explicit film about the sexual relationship between two cowboys. The archbishop called the movie “very powerful,” and, unlike many pro-family leaders, did not condemn the film for its favorable treatment of homosexuality.

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