{"id":9180,"date":"2024-01-24T10:42:58","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T15:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=9180"},"modified":"2024-01-24T10:42:58","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T15:42:58","slug":"pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis Calls Sexual Pleasure &#8216;a Gift From God,&#8217; But Advises Against Pornography"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_9189\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9189\" style=\"width: 830px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9189\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-pornography-credit-guardian-news-youtube.png\" alt=\"pope francis\" width=\"830\" height=\"536\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9189\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guardian News\/YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>According to Pope Francis, \u201csexual pleasure is a gift from God,\u201d but Catholics should avoid pornography. He made the remarks during a catechesis devoted to the \u201cvice of lust\u201d at his general audience in Saint Peter\u2019s Square. He said sexual pleasure was something to be cherished, but it was being \u201cundermined by pornography,\u201d and \u201csatisfaction without a relationship can generate forms of addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The pope said, \u201cWe must defend love,\u201d but he added, \u201cwinning against the battle of lust can be a lifelong undertaking.\u201d Francis appeared to be responding to his conservative critics, who were incensed after a book resurfaced featuring sexually explicit content written decades ago by the Vatican\u2019s head of doctrine. The book, now out of print, by V\u00edctor Manuel Fern\u00e1ndez, an Argentinian cardinal close to Francis who was already known as the author of another sexually charged book written in his youth, included a chapter describing the differences between male and female orgasms.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4AjSReNPd4U?si=yzHubnOkL5zNSSFk\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In response to the more recent scandal, Fern\u00e1ndez, whose appointment to one of the Vatican\u2019s most powerful positions was criticised by conservative cardinals, told Crux,\u201cI would certainly not write [that] now.\u201d In 2022, during a talk with seminarians about the dangers of social media,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/oct\/26\/pope-francis-warns-seminarians-against-dangers-of-online-pornography\">the pope warned<\/a>\u00a0against the \u201cdevil\u201d of digital pornography, while admitting that priests and nuns also watch online porn. \u201cIt is a vice that so many people have. So many laymen, so many laywomen, and also priests and nuns,\u201d he said. \u201cThe devil enters from there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In late 2020, the Vatican was left in an embarrassing predicament when it was forced to \u201cseek explanations from Instagram\u201d after Pope Francis\u2019s official Instagram, which along with his other social media accounts is managed by a team of people, \u201cliked\u201d a photo of the Brazilian model Natalia Garibotto.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201clike\u201d from the pope\u2019s account was visible on Garibotto\u2019s page for several days before being unliked. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/nov\/19\/pope-francis-instagram-like-brazil-model-natalia-garibotto\">Vatican said<\/a>\u00a0at the time: \u201cWe can exclude that the \u2018like\u2019 came from the Holy See\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to Pope Francis, \u201csexual pleasure is a gift from God,\u201d but Catholics should avoid pornography. He made the remarks during a catechesis devoted to the \u201cvice of lust\u201d at his general audience in Saint Peter\u2019s Square. He said sexual pleasure was something to be cherished, but it was being \u201cundermined by pornography,\u201d and \u201csatisfaction&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":9189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11],"tags":[6,1845],"class_list":["post-9180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-catholic","category-pope","tag-pope-francis","tag-pornography"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pope Francis Calls Sexual Pleasure &#039;a Gift From God,&#039; But Advises Against Pornography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"According to Pope Francis, \u201csexual pleasure is a gift from God,\u201d but Catholics should avoid pornography. He made the remarks during a catechesis.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pope Francis Calls Sexual Pleasure &#039;a Gift From God,&#039; But Advises Against Pornography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"According to Pope Francis, \u201csexual pleasure is a gift from God,\u201d but Catholics should avoid pornography. He made the remarks during a catechesis.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-01-24T15:42:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-pornography-credit-guardian-news-youtube.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"830\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lauren McKeithen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pope Francis Calls Sexual Pleasure 'a Gift From God,' But Advises Against Pornography","description":"According to Pope Francis, \u201csexual pleasure is a gift from God,\u201d but Catholics should avoid pornography. He made the remarks during a catechesis.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pope Francis Calls Sexual Pleasure 'a Gift From God,' But Advises Against Pornography","og_description":"According to Pope Francis, \u201csexual pleasure is a gift from God,\u201d but Catholics should avoid pornography. He made the remarks during a catechesis.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2024-01-24T15:42:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":830,"height":536,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-pornography-credit-guardian-news-youtube.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Lauren McKeithen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html","name":"Pope Francis Calls Sexual Pleasure 'a Gift From God,' But Advises Against Pornography","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-pornography-credit-guardian-news-youtube.png","datePublished":"2024-01-24T15:42:58+00:00","dateModified":"2024-01-24T15:42:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/67183b7ec4ffc995620174c78f9cc68a"},"description":"According to Pope Francis, \u201csexual pleasure is a gift from God,\u201d but Catholics should avoid pornography. He made the remarks during a catechesis.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-pornography-credit-guardian-news-youtube.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-pornography-credit-guardian-news-youtube.png","width":830,"height":536,"caption":"Guardian News\/YouTube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/01\/pope-francis-calls-sexual-pleasure-a-gift-from-god-but-advises-against-pornography.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pope Francis Calls Sexual Pleasure &#8216;a Gift From God,&#8217; But Advises Against Pornography"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/67183b7ec4ffc995620174c78f9cc68a","name":"lmckeithen","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/lmckeithen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9192,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions\/9192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}