Signs of the times: exorcists, pornography, alienated youth and the Immaculate Conception

Father Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [temporary URL] (Assumption Grotto News, December 7, 2014):

As if the addiction itself were not bad enough, there are, according to a bonafide exorcist, some pornography sites that have had a curse put on them, to the effect that those who view them become inextricably addicted to them. This is somewhat reminiscent of the alleged practice of some of the more perverse rock-and-roll groups whose musical albums have had Satanic message encoded onto them. While all this may lay claim to conspiracy phobia, it is incontestably true that there are a lot of weird people in the media business who shamelessly boast of their deviant behaviors of various kinds and lead their devotees to imitate them.

This information on the curse came to me via Father John over a midday meal (some of our dinner conversation is, as you see, ill-conducive to good digestion). I relate this to you because of my ongoing concern about that trajectory of evil I wrote about a few weeks back by which people become more and more helplessly (so it seems) entangled in evil habits in a downward spiral of perverse inclinations. The end of this line of corruption is, of course, the eternal damnation of a soul–the devil getting the just reward for his diligence. A pastor then must be worried about things of this kind and want to do what he can to restrain the onslaught of wickedness from corrupting his flock. It’s perhaps a good idea to let young people know that pornography is a multi-layered vice whose end is the capture of one’s immortal soul. Once young people come upon this filth they may desperately want to be freed from its entanglements but find themselves held in a compulsive bondage to vice. The demonic element here should not be overlooked since it helps explain the ever widening web that ensnares our youth, extinguishing the light of reason from their minds and tormenting their imaginations.

While on this unsavory topic...I read an article during the week (this time over breakfast, a fact which may make one wonder whether our priests may be suffering from gastronomic disorders) on the topic of the freakishness of our youth. We know that not a few young people like to dress up and act in weird, grotesque ways. This has often baffled me, as it surely has many others. The article in question gives the reason. Many adolescents and young adults have come to feel alienated from the society of people of accepted mores. By joining offbeat groups, by blasting their auditory faculties unto near deafness, by dressing up (or down) in outlandish ways they can find a place where they, hiding their real selves all the while, are accepted, “in,” on account of the anonymity provided by the weird behaviors and–shall I call it–their camouflage. The real tragic element here is not the bizarre aspect of it but the fact of the loneliness that they feel on account of having been left without a seriously engaging religious way of life, without moral training, and without much personal self-discipline. They are thus consigned to meander in a world that is, in many ways, incomprehensible to them. They seek understanding, love, “values” and–beyond all else–God in their lives. Since our world generally is losing all this, it can’t pass on these most needed realities to the young. The result is their isolation–the emptiness which their eccentricity temporarily remedies. 

This then is another pastoral pitch for you to be exemplary Catholic Christians, for your own sakes first of all, and then for the sake of the young who may see your example and be confused if what you say you believe and you do are contraries. 

Now on to something else. Monday is a holyday of obligation, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is not one of those sometime holydays where the bishops have dropped the obligation to attend Mass when the day in question should fall on a Monday. This one, December 8, is always obligatory. The reason is that this is the title for the Virgin Mary as the Patroness of our USA. How we need Her patronage! Do not neglect, under pain of mortal sin, to come to Mass tomorrow and, while there, to beseech the holy Mother of God to act powerfully on behalf of our country which is fast becoming godless and pagan.

Fr. Perrone