Even nuns watch porn, says Pope
Nick Squires
Thu, 27 October 2022 at 12:40 am·2-min read
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Pope Francis
Religious leader
Pope Francis - VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
‘A threat to public health’
“We talk about the scourge of pornography, which is now spread everywhere via the web,” he said during an audience at the Vatican at the time.“It should be denounced as a permanent attack on the dignity of men and women. It is not only a matter of protecting children but also of declaring pornography a threat to public health.”
The Vatican had to launch an investigation in 2020 after the Pope’s official Instagram account “liked” an image of a Brazilian bikini model posing in a skimpy schoolgirl outfit.
Natalia Garibotto, who wore a cropped white shirt and a revealing tartan skirt, joked that she would be “going to heaven” after the attention from the Holy See.
She received the ‘like’ from the Pope’s Instagram account, Franciscus, which has nearly nine million followers.
Vatican officials demanded to know how the embarrassing endorsement happened, amid speculation that someone in the Holy See’s communications team may have accidentally pressed the ‘like’ button while browsing the model’s extensive gallery of images.
A Vatican official told The Telegraph at the time that the Holy See had asked Instagram for “a detailed explanation” of the incident.
