MANASSAS, Va. – Boys suffer significantly from exposure to pornography, particularly in their education, according to a recent piece by Sean Fitzpatrick at Crisis Magazine. Fitzpatrick’s piece warns of several ways in which pornography hinders a boy’s ability to be properly educated.

“Pornography eradicates mystery, and without mystery, boys will lose their ability to wonder, and in a large part, their ability to become wise—which is the work of education,” writes Fitzpatrick, who serves as headmaster at Gregory the Great Academy in Scranton, Penn. He notes that “without wonder, education is a crippled thing at best.”

He continues:

Without the mysteries of beauty and love intact, there are severe impediments to education, where the whole draw is mystery and longing. Pornography, and the accessibility of pornography, cheapens the most hallowed of domains to a young mind and can render any object of beauty a dubious and dirty thing, nothing to take seriously, nothing to respect, and nothing to be in awe of.

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Fitzpatrick writes that education “is about the permanent things, the eternal things, and anything that breaks down contact with transcendental realities impedes the work of education.”

“Boys long for meaning, especially in education, and the damage and desensitization caused by Internet porn puts boys at risk of never finding their way… out of virtual reality,” Fitzpatrick concludes.

The Cardinal Newman Society recently interviewed Dr. John Grabowski, associate professor of moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America and a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family, about the dangers of technology on college campuses. Grabowski specifically warned of pornography’s widespread access and its effects on young people’s relationships.

Pornography “conditions people to ignore the human dignity of others, seeing them simply as virtual images to be consumed,” Grabowski told the Newman Society, adding that “it coarsens us.” Grabowski has also noticed pornography causing an increased difficulty for modern college students to “live chastely and virtuously on college campuses.” Grabowski noted that “the omnipresence of online pornography is a direct contributor” to the unhealthy practices of the “hookup culture.”

Grabowski told the Society that the insidious influence of pornography might be combated by giving young people more opportunities for face-to-face service and outreach. “Giving them the opportunity to serve others and to serve women and children, the primary individuals exploited by the porn industry, is a way to reinforce their growth in virtue,” he explained. “It might encourage them to realize that they can’t simply look at another human being as a sexual object, or something to be exploited on a screen.”

Authored by Kimberly Scharfenberger
Originally published here by Catholic Education Daily, an online publication of The Cardinal Newman Society

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Published with permission