UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times
by Gavin Drake
Posted: 06 Nov 2015
SOCIETY is confronted by a “floodtide of unhealthy, objectifying, sexual pornography”, the Bishop of Chester, Dr Peter Forster, said on Thursday, in a take-note debate in the House of Lords on pornography and its impact.
“Pornography is a very widespread feature of Western society, especially since the advent of the internet age,” he said. “In my ministry, I have come across addiction to pornography as a factor in individual marriage breakdown.
“As a Bishop, I have had two of my clergy prosecuted for downloading child sexual-abuse images, usually called child pornography. Both these priests were given custodial sentences and both are unlikely ever again to exercise the Christian ministry for which they were trained.”
He said that the “sheer volume of cases” of child-sex abuse images meant that “prosecutions are no longer routinely brought”. He quoted a University of Bristol survey, that suggested that 40 per cent of children between the age of 13 and 17 “had suffered sexual coercion of some sort, ranging from rape to being pressurised into unwanted sexual activity, often with elements of physical violence.”
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