VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
Belleville News-Democrat [Belleville IL]
October 27, 2022
By Aspen Pflughoeft
Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, condemned digital pornography while speaking at the Vatican about social media use.
The pope spoke to and answered questions from a group of seminarians and priests studying in Rome, Italy, on Monday, Oct. 24, according to the full text of the event published on Vatican City’s website.
One person asked the pope how priests and those considering becoming priests should use social media, the text of the event says.
After instructing people to use digital technology “to advance, to communicate,” the pope turned his attention to the topic of digital pornography, The Guardian reported.
Pornography, the pope said, “is a vice that has so many people, so many lay people, so many lay women and also priests and nuns,” according to a translation by Sky News.
The pope said he realized this reality and condemned the behavior, saying both “criminal pornography like that of child abuse” and “normal pornography” were problematic, the outlet reported.
“I tell you, (pornography) is something that weakens the soul,” the pope warned, according to Sky News. “It weakens the soul. The devil enters from there: he weakens the priestly heart.”
“Delete this from your phone, so you will not have temptation in hand,” he said, according to BBC.
The Vatican was embarrassed in 2020 when the official Instagram account of Pope Francis liked a revealing photo of a Brazilian model, Natalia Garibotto, The Guardian reported. The pope’s social media accounts are managed by a team of people, the outlet reported.
The account later removed the “like” and launched an investigation into the incident, The Guardian reported. Google Translate was used to translate the text of the event published by Vatican City.