During a general audience in St. Peter’s Square last Wednesday, the Pope called sex “God’s gift” but urged people not to watch porn.
The pontiff’s statement came during a catechesis on the “vice of lust”: “Satisfaction without a relationship can create dependence.” He noted that sexual pleasure should be protected, but it is “undermined by pornography,” quotes The Guardian:
“We must defend love. Victory in the battle with lust, with voluptuousness, can become the work of a lifetime.”
Francis appeared to be responding to his conservative critics, who were outraged last week by the resurfacing of a sexually explicit book written by Argentine Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, who is close to Francis, and entitled Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality, which he wrote in 1998
He was previously known as the author of another book with sexual overtones, written in his youth. It included a chapter describing the differences between male and female orgasms. It is now no longer published. In response to the recent scandal, Fernandez, whose appointment to one of the most powerful positions in the Vatican (head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) has been criticized by conservative cardinals and parishioners, said: “I would definitely not write [это] Now”.
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