By John-Henry Westen

SYDNEY, May 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "One of the most evil uses of the Internet is the ready availability of pornography," warn the Bishops of Australia in a new pastoral letter on Internet safety which appropriately has a YouTube video promoting it. 

  The letter explains that "the relative anonymity of the Internet and its private nature means that there is a real danger of pornographic addiction." The Bishops warn that "All of these images are humiliating and degrading, most often towards women."

  The letter points to "a growing body of research about the damage that Internet pornography is doing to marriages and relationships. In 2007, the Sydney Morning Herald spent two months charting this new social phenomenon which it said was "poisoning couples and destroying families". The investigation found that counselors were reporting that an increasing number of clients had begun to cite Internet pornography as a factor in their relationship breakdowns."

  The Bishops point out moreover that while it is damaging to marriages, "addiction to Internet pornography is no less damaging to single people or to those dedicated to living a life of celibacy."

The letter explains: "The Church commends the intimate giving of spouses to each other. Pornography undermines this. It injures the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world."

  The bishops urge parents to discuss the dangers of pornography - "its damaging impact on human dignity and on relationships" - with their children, and call for the government to ban such degrading materials.

"Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials, and that includes, as far as possible, distribution on the Internet," says the letter.

  The full pastoral letter is available online here:
  http://www.acbc.catholic.org.au/documents/200804271910.pdf

  See the bishops short YouTube video narrated by Robert Ingham
  http://www.youtube.com/ACBCcomms

April 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Just two days prior to Pope Francis’ release of his Apostolic Exhortation on the family, a German cardinal who has been an outspoken defender of Catholic teaching on marriage and family has criticized as “impossible” the Synod’s suggestion that civilly divorced and remarried Catholic become “more integrated” into the Church. 

Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, stated in an article appearing today on the Austrian Catholic website Kath.net that integration that is not founded on the truths of the indissolubility of marriage and the sacredness of Holy Communion would lead to “conflicts,” “embarrassments,” and an “undermining of the Church’s sacred proclamation.” Reporter Maike Hickson has translated key sections of the cardinal's article at The Wanderer.

The cardinal said that a married Catholic who enters into a new civil union is “committing adultery,” and that as long as such a person is unwilling to put an end to the sinful situation, he “cannot receive either absolution in Confession nor the Eucharist.” Any path other than repentance and change of life is “bound to fail,” the cardinal said, due to “its inherent untruthfulness.” 

This “untruthfulness” directly applies “to the attempt to integrate into the Church those who live in an invalid ‘second marriage’ by admitting them to liturgical, catechetical and other functions,” he added.

The cardinal said that an integration without repentance and change of life cannot be reconciled with the doctrines of the faith. 

“What is fundamentally impossible for reasons of Faith, is also impossible in the individual case,” he said.

Referring directly to Pope Francis’ forthcoming exhortation, the cardinal said that no matter what the document contains, everything stated must be interpreted in light of the unchanging dogmas of the Church, especially as expressed in the Church’s Catechism.  

“The post-synodal document, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), is therefore to be interpreted in light of the above-presented principles, especially since a contradiction between a papal document and the Catechism of the Catholic Church would not be imaginable,” he said. 

The Exhortation is to be released April 8 at noon, Rome time. Two left-leaning cardinals — Lorenzo Baldisseri and Christoph Schönborn — will present the document, a move which Vatican experts say could suggest the document has a progressive bent. 

ANALYSIS

HOLLYWOOD, April 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – If J.J. Abrams, the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has his way with future scripts, expect homosexual characters.

Abrams was hosting a pre-Academy Awards event at his production company Bad Robot when asked about prospects for homosexual characters. He responded, “Of course, of course. When I talk about inclusivity it’s not excluding gay characters. It’s about inclusivity. So of course.”

Abrams like everyone else in Hollywood was talking about inclusivity in response to all this year’s nominees for acting Oscars being white (though largely unnoticed was the prominence of gay or transgender storylines). On the larger issue of color—or lack thereof—Abrams had told the Daily Beast,  “It’s shameful. We all need to do better to represent this world. It’s something that is important to me, and is something that we’re focusing on at Bad Robot.”

Speculation immediately began about the close relationship between two leading male characters, Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega), in Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens, which has already grossed 2 billion USD worldwide.

Everyone from the Daily Beast to the British Express wondered: Will the sequel, Rogue One, set for release by Christmas, see new and openly homosexual characters take the stage or will the already close friendship between Poe and Finn turn into something more?

Isaac clearly thinks he was in more than a buddy movie. He told the audience of the Ellen talk show, “You have to watch it a few times to catch all the little hints. But there was. At least I was playing romance. In the cockpit I was playing... there was a deep romance.”

Allmagnews.com noted, “After their crash landing on the desert planet, Finn seemed rather distressed that Poe may have been lost. All that was left of the pilot was his leather jacket, and Finn wore it as he made his way through the planet.” Cinema Blend commented about their happy reunion late in the movie: “Did you see that look Poe gave Finn when he told Finn that his jacket looked good on him?”

Moreover, Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars and appears for just a moment in the latest one, has emerged as a contender for the gay stakes because of a mysterious tweet to a fan asking about his character’s sexuality. “Luke is whatever the audience wants him to be. So you can decide for yourself.”  

Finally, the latest novel in the print series, has introduced three new LGBT characters to its parallel story line. Though its fictional reality is parallel but not identical to the movie series, its corporate universe is identically dominated by Disney and LucasFilm. At least in print they believe their fans are ready for a gay hero named Sinjir Rath Velus, an Imperial officer who has crossed over to the Rebels.

So far, parents of preteens and early teens have only had to worry about excessive violence (The Force Awakens is rated among the most violent episodes and the darkest). Now must they go the theatre in December 2017 with their “gaydar” units turned on? Does it matter?

“Of course it does,” Dan Gainor, vice president of the conservative Media Research Center, told LifeSiteNews. “Hollywood is mass marketing propaganda. If it isn’t environmental and anti-American propaganda in Avatar, it’s sexual propaganda. There are a lot of gays in Hollywood. But it doesn’t mean that the rest of America is like that.” The MRC has summarized its beliefs succinctly, in a 2012 report titled “Hollywood: Driving the Homosexual Agenda for 40 Years.”

Homosexuals are presented as healthy, normal, living in married relationships with children, a picture that differs significantly from the woeful health and relational patterns of most homosexuals, warns Gainor.  “They are presented as far more common than they are in reality.”

He cites a 2015 Gallup poll showing 53 percent of Americans believe that from 20-25 percent of the population is homosexual, up from 13 percent who believed this in 2002. “That’s Hollywood’s work,” said Gainor. “It means we are deciding policies thinking we are accommodating a sizeable group when it’s a miniscule minority.”

The direct influence of the entertainment media on popular attitudes is well documented. A 2012 survey of “likely voters” by THR showed, according to the Hollywood Reporter, that  “27 percent said gay TV made them more pro-gay marriage, and six percent [said it made them] more anti. Obama voters watched and 30 percent got more supportive, 2 percent less supportive. [As for] Romney [supporters]… 13 percent got more pro-gay-marriage, 12 percent got more anti.” Concluded the Reporter: “Social conservatives who fear the influence of gay-friendly TV are evidently right to fear it.”

But movie studios are far behind TV in pushing homosexuality, laments the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which noted only a slight increase in homosexual content between 2013 and 2014. “Of the 114 films GLAAD tracked this year [for 2014], only 20 (17.5%) included depictions of LGBT characters, and some of those would have been better left on the cutting room floor,” it reported.

But anecdotal evidence indicates a shift last year to movies with dominant homosexual or LGBT themes. While GLAAD could find no transgender characters in 2014, last year saw the release of The Danish Girl, a biopic about a Danish artist in the 1920s who died from complications of sex-change surgery; Carol about a 60s housewife having an affair with a shopgirl; and Freeheld, about a lesbian police officer dying of cancer and fighting for her partner to get her death benefits. All featured major stars such as Eddie Redmayne and Cate Blanchett.

Still, for Gainor, nothing tops the popular, well-made new TV series called Lucifer. “I’m unshockable. Why should I get upset about a gay character in Star Wars when there is now a TV series marketing Satan as the good guy?”

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Hillary Clinton has doubled down on her contentious position that “the unborn person does not have constitutional rights,” now stating that even the child just hours away from delivery is deprived of rights because “that is the way we structure it.”

Paula Faris of ABC’s “The View” asked the Democratic frontrunner to clarify her position stated last Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Faros asked Clinton, “At what point does someone have constitutional rights, and are you saying that a child, on its due date, just hours before delivery still has no constitutional rights?”

“Under the law that is the case, Paula,” replied Clinton. 

Clinton then went on to declare her support for the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion, calling it “an important statement about the importance of a woman making this most difficult decision with consultation by whom she chooses, her doctor, her faith, her family. And under the law — and under certainly that decision — that is the way we structure it.”

Weeks prior to birth, a preborn baby is a completely formed human being with perfectly functioning brain, eyes, heart, and lungs. The baby is able to hear sounds from the outside world and recognizes its mother's voice. The baby is capable of surviving outside its mother's womb. 

Critics have called Clinton’s position on life out-of-touch with the American mainstream.

“Clinton revealed that she believes no unborn child is subject to constitutional rights,” the Republican National Committee said in a statement on Sunday when Clinton first made her position clear. 

“Voters now know Clinton’s extreme stance against the value of protecting life, and can no longer be misled by her deceptive pandering,” the Committee stated.