Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the Catholic Church, Father Hermann Backhaus, a priest of the Diocese of Münster, Germany, proves you wrong. In a recent interview, Backhaus said that consuming pornography “can have a relieving effect” on celibate clergy.
Does a priest recommend pornography to fellow priests? It sounds strange at first—even a bit queer. But if you read below the headlines, you discover that Fr. Backhaus is also a psychologist. And, of course, psychologists speak with authority—even on moral issues.
At least, that’s what Fr. Backhaus seems to believe. He is quite proud of being a psychologist and mentions the fact several times during the interview. For example: “I not only have a degree in psychology, but also a graduate degree in moral theology. But in our institution, I work as a psychologist who is also a priest—and not the other way around.”
In other words, for Fr. Backhaus, a degree in psychology trumps a degree in moral theology. “As a psychologist,” he said, “I do not judge or condemn porn consumption.”
Being a psychologist, however, does not prevent him from judging those who do judge porn consumption as wrong. Even Pope Francis comes in for criticism for having recently warned that porn provides the devil an entry point into the soul. “To bring the devil in connection with pornography,” says Backhaus, “is a very strong statement. I don’t know if Francis is not rather working against his intention than promoting it.”
As Fr. Backhaus correctly discerns, Francis’s main intention all along has been to promote a permissive attitude toward sexual activity. He may from time to time say something to pacify traditional Catholics, but his real intentions are revealed in his hirings and firings. LGBT-supportive prelates are invariably promoted, while traditional clergy are regularly demoted.
If Francis really believed that pornography was a danger to the soul, he would immediately prohibit Backhaus from counseling priests, and send him off to a remote monastery for a few years of prayer and contemplation– sans cell phone.
What’s much more likely, however, is that like other activists for sexual permissiveness such as Fr. James Martin, Fr. Backhaus will be invited to meet with Francis in a private audience. Shortly after, we can expect to see him given an influential post—perhaps in the Dicastery for Culture and Education. That institution is now headed by Francis appointee Cardinal Jose Tolentino de Mendonca, who, according to Rorate Caeli, “was well known in the Portuguese Church for being the absolutely most fabulous fabuloso of the whole fabulousness.”
One of Fr. Backhaus’s chief concerns is that priests are often lonely and overstressed. His solution to the problem is more pornography and more masturbation for their “relieving effect.” At the Dicastery of Education, he would have the time and resources for further research in the area. Perhaps the final result would be a patented product available on Amazon. It could be called “Father Backhaus’s fast relief technique for overstressed clergy.”
Meanwhile, despite what Fr. Backhaus may think, other psychologists are doubtful about the beneficial effects of pornography. For many people in our society, pornography has become a serious addiction and one of the leading causes of divorce as well. As with other forms of addiction—such as drug addiction—repeated use leads to a higher tolerance. Just as drug users eventually seek higher doses or more powerful substances, porn addicts also seek stronger stimulation–often in depictions of multiple-partner sex acts, and/or sadomasochistic sex.
In the real world, moreover, pornography leads not to stress relief but to dissatisfaction with one’s spouse, increased marital tension, and an increased incidence of marital infidelity. In fact, even in marriages where there is no actual infidelity, pornography use is experienced by both spouses—the guilty one and the aggrieved one—as an act of infidelity.
One supposes that clergy who consume pornography would also experience it as an act of infidelity. Catholic clergy take vows of chastity, and Catholic teaching explicitly condemns pornography and masturbation as sins against chastity. If a priest has a healthy conscience, we would expect him to be bothered by these infidelities, and try harder to overcome them.
On the other hand, Fr. Backhaus wants priests to deaden their consciences and give in to their temptations. After all, he says, pornography is “something that is normal in our society.” And he notes that “about 95 percent of men and 90 percent of women admit during counseling that they have had experiences with masturbation.”
Fr. Backhaus ought to ask for a tuition refund for his program in moral theology. That’s because he’s making very basic mistakes in moral reasoning. He confuses “normality” with morality. He reasons that if everybody’s doing it, it must be okay. But, as every parent knows, following the crowd is not always good advice. About 100 percent of men and women have told lies at one time or another in their lives. I guess that makes lying “normal” in our society but it certainly doesn’t make it okay.
The “everybody’s doing it” argument usually goes along with the “let’s be realistic” argument. And sure enough, Fr. Backhaus uses that argument too. Citing his authority as a psychologist, he says “we start from real life, that is reality.” He then proceeds to cite the data on the prevalence of masturbation.
What Backhaus forgets, however, is that owning slaves once seemed perfectly normal, natural, and acceptable. Meanwhile, those who thought that slavery should be abolished were told that they had to be realistic.
But being realistic about human nature is to recognize that humans are not purely natural creatures who can safely follow whatever impulses “come naturally.” Rather, according to Christian tradition and teaching, people are meant to live on both the natural and supernatural levels. And the proper order of things is for the supernatural to take precedence over the natural.
But through their sin, Adam and Eve upset the proper order of things. According to the Catholic Catechism, their sin was “an abuse of the freedom” (387) given by God, by which they fell from their original state of holiness into a state of sin.
Prior to the Fall, man exercised a “mastery of self” (377). After the Fall, however, “the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered” (400), and man becomes a slave to sin.
One can dismiss all of this as nothing more than an ancient myth, but it’s difficult to deny that the ancient “myth” fits the facts of human nature more closely than the vast majority of philosophical and psychological explanations.
After forgiving the woman caught in adultery, Jesus tells the Jews who had believed in him, “Truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8.34). And this is exactly the way many repeat sinners experience their sins. The alcoholic knows that he shouldn’t take another drink, but he can’t help himself. The porn addict knows that his habit is damaging his marriage, but he can’t resist the temptation. The verbally abusive husband knows he shouldn’t shout at his wife, but he can’t control his impulses.
In short, habitual sin takes away our freedom not to sin, and we truly become slaves to sin.
Herr Father Backhaus thinks that by encouraging priests to watch porn (or in some cases, more porn), he is freeing them both from stress and guilt. But in reality, he is setting them on a road that may lead them into spiritual slavery. At that point, other, more mature priests and psychologists will need to be called in to see if they can undo the damage.
The bad news is that priests like Fr. Backhaus are no longer rare exceptions in the Church. As anyone who pays attention can now see, the Catholic establishment is getting wackier by the day.
The good news is that the nuttiness has become so extreme and so visible that more and more Catholics are noticing. And that includes more of those who can actually do something about the situation.
In my next piece, I plan to detail some of the good news. Stay tuned.
