The mask drops

Joey, I think you are mistaken about the nature of pornography. Frankly, if pornography were primarily concerned with the pleasures of the flesh, it would be much less harmful. Exuberant, mutually pleasing sexual enjoyment might be considered illicit by the Church, due to the lack of marriage vows, but it wouldn't be evil. What makes it seriously wrong comes all from the spirit--brutality, gloating violation of innocence, domination of the weak, pleasure in causing pain without consent and taking what is not freely given. These are all evil and all come from the heart of man. Animals don't sin. To say porn is evil because it's "animal" is missing the point. (And btw, we're not all that closely related to cows--who engage in very little extra-procreational sexual frolicking. We're primates. You've got the wrong mammal there.)

Why haven't we ended up in hell yet?

Sadly, one man's cultural joy is another man's hell.

But...from an objective point of view, is not cultural "hell" simply a place so bad that man willingly dies off with no hope for the future? Commits cultural sucide, so to speak?

Interestingly, not a single culture has maintained a TFR=2 (replacement rate) after embracing Rock'n Roll. And wasn't there an old Stone's song called Sympathy For the Devil?

Could it be...Satan? :-)

Before you swallow this one hook, line and sinker, consider the attached:

http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/episcope/2007/07/stop-the-presse.html

I'm not saying one side or the other is right, but be aware that there are some challenging the accuracy of the original story.

This isn't really surprising, if you look at it in a philosophical or, especially, a theological way. Humans have souls, which are holy and formed in the image of God Himself, and also bodies, which are basically just really advanced cows when you come down to it. Pornography plays only to the body---it is for nothing more than physical titilation, the soul really has no part in it. So it's not really surprising that, over time, it will become more and more "animal," as the soul becomes more and more detached from it, because porn has nothing to do with loving or even knowing the object of one's attraction.

God bless.

St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 seems to suggest that some things we do with our bodies, e.g., fornication, can't be extricated from our souls - hence the soul really does have a part in it - and in the case of fornication by a Christian (and maybe by a non-Christian as well?), it is not two persons but three who are "joined" in and by the act. Also, I don't think the Hebrew and even NT understanding of "soul" is that it's some immaterial part or essence that can be divorced from the body. The Hebrew nephesh/neshamah often refers to the whole being, IIRC.

Accept him, yes.

But from the earliest days, the Church had criteria for a person's admission into the Body of Christ by baptism and chrismation, and in order to receive the Eucharist.

And even in the Apostles' letters, that acceptance could be strained or suspended or broken by unrepentance or sinful actions by a Christian brother or sister.

It's true that great sinners have become saints, and I have to ask: How do we know whether this man is fit to be a priest or not? If I were responsible for judging his fitness, I would, of course, want to look very carefully at his background and would have definite questions about his previous career.

In terms of the dark direction porn has gone in, that trend also seems to operating in the glorified "snuff" films that are currently disguised as horror movies (like Saw, Saw II, and Hostel, Hostel II, etc.) I refuse to see movies like that, but I agree with the person who said that porn (or at least, dark, sadomasochistic porn) is not about our "animal" nature, it is about some sort of soul sickness.

Isn't this a direct (meaning, not cliched) example of holier than thou?

As a non-Christian (and having never been one, not an ex-C), this is an aspect of dogma that keeps me perpetually confused. I find it, most of the time, in direct contradiction to other aspects like forgiveness and salvation.

One comparison point that comes to mind is the Jewish high holy days Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Every year, Jews seek atonement for sins against both God and their fellows.

I'm not attempting to create parallels or invidious comparisons. I'm just drawing attention to something I find less than constructive, and that's establishing a tradition of forgiveness and then judging people who have done wrong and later seek to start anew. It seems to me, observing from the outside, that a once and done criminal like a murderer is somehow easier to forgive than the porn star cited above.

If the porn guy has genuinely changed course then be assured that trumpets in Heaven are a-blarin', and choirs of angels are a-singin', and we should be rejoicing right along with them--whether he should be a priest or not is another matter. But I wanted to comment more on Rod's point that pornography is a profoundly evil enterprise, and I'd suggest it was even before the guys in the business started wearing around their Hail Satan T-shirts and goat leggings and such. We tend to gloss over it as not so big a deal and more and more it gets mainstreamed and for cryin' out loud Hugh Hefner is just a cuddly fuzzy bear--who will probably have a state funeral when he dies--I can just see the E! Channel documentaries now... But in all seriousness, imagine how it is that the pornography enterprise wrecks souls:
We are created in God’s image, and more than anything that means we are created to love, to put the good of others first, above our own good, to love others as Jesus showed us that he loves us. The essential temptation, man’s condition really, is to put ourselves first, in the center, and the other’s purpose becomes to serve us one way or another. The other becomes an object for us to use. We are all on a vector—gradually moving toward being able to love like God, or gradually moving away from that.
The greatest evil of pornography is that it trains us to objectify others. With each pornographic image, after each image, after each image, we are training ourselves to see the other person not as a person, as an embodied soul, but as an object, an object whose sole purpose is our gratification. And the more we are trained in this way the more we become this way, and the more it spills over into our relationships so we come to see those around us as objects, whom we are less and less able to love. With the pervasiveness of pornography (something that’s new, never in history has it been like this), God only knows how many souls are having the ability to love gradually sucked out of them.
And the models and actors, same thing. They know well that they are being used, but that’s fine, they’re getting paid—so they are happily using those who are using them. And those behind it all?—pure business—trafficking in the bodies and souls of others for pure hard cash. In all aspects of the whole enterprise people are commodities, objects to be used for one’s own gratification—sexual, financial, whatever.
And the end result for an individual wrapped up in it, regardless of what part he or she plays—viewer, model, or businessman—is a steady day-after-day training, continual reiteration, that people are objects to be used, until, finally, the person has become unable to love, and unable to receive love, and that is Hell.
All of Evil’s efforts have this same aim and this is just one salient among many, but it’s not a small one, and I’d suspect it’s not an unsuccessful one.
It's deeply sad, really. Remember that all of these folks--however they participate--are God's children, with potential destinies so beautiful. But all under attack, all gradually having their capacity for love taken away. I imagine God looks at this enterprise--consuming his children--with the same horror that we would view child pornography--his beautiful children's souls tormented, bewildered, pulverized.

"...But to be an ordained priest means he will take on enormous responsibilities by virtue of his office. A priest stands for something. .."

Paul? Augustine?