The future is friendly again

By Paul Schratz

The surprising but welcome decision by Telus to back away from its new smut product-line has directed a floodlight onto a topic that needed to be exposed: the prevalence of pornography.

It says a lot when the best argument people could muster for cell-phone porn during the last few weeks was, “With so much of it out there, what’s a little more?”

In the end, Telus relented, obviously feeling The Future is Friendly makes a better marketing slogan than The Future is Filthy, but the debate rages on, and some feel it’s only a matter of time before someone like Telus, or Telus itself, decides to test the swampy waters of pornography again.

In fact, a scant few hours after we learned Telus was backing down, a Telus spokeswoman suggested the future might be friendly to porn some day in the future. “It’s not appropriate for any business to say never means never.”

Fortunately the Catholic Church is quite comfortable saying never means never, especially when it comes to anything that abuses the human body and human dignity.

The special section we published last week, available on-line at http://bcc.rcav.org/07-02-19/Pornography_and_Sex_Addiction.pdf, showed starkly why the Church was disturbed by Telus’s new venture in vice: stories of shattered marriages, lost jobs, forays into immoral behaviour, lives caught up in lies and deceit, and souls trapped in a whirlpool of iniquity from which they were powerless to escape.

In his Globe and Mail column, writer Russell Smith plays innocent, saying he doesn’t know what the fuss is all about and what pornography is, inviting readers to send him their definitions.

Smith should read some Theology of the Body. Christopher West, the noted Theology of the Body educator, has been addressing the topic of pornography and lust in his recent B.C. Catholic columns, writing “pornography raises objections because of the way in which the human body is portrayed (Theology of the Body 63:5).

“Pornographers portray the body with the explicit intention of arousing lust, or, as theologians would say, ‘concupiscence,’ in the viewer.”

In addition to questions in the last couple of weeks about why pornography is such a big deal in the first place, hostile accusations were aimed at the Church for sticking its theology into public view again. One e-mail we received contained little that is printable except for a blasphemous reference followed by a barely literate “a hate christians.

Well, at least the ones that push their views on others.”

Therein lies the difference between Catholic thinking and worldly philosophy. There is no hatred in Catholic teaching, only an emphasis on essentials such as truth, dignity, and freedom.

While the Church teaches a catechism of life and truth, pornography takes a page from the catechism of death that is instructing more and more of the world.

The argument often made is that if enough people want something, there’s no fault in providing it. That might be a typical argument for a drug dealer to make, but the fact is that it’s no defence to say one is only providing more of the poison that’s already out there.

Archbishop Roussin put it best in his initial statement on the Telus situation: “Telus Mobility has crossed the line which brings the problem of the accessibility of pornographic material further into the public realm.” Precisely.

In his response to Telus’s decision to cancel phone porn, the archbishop welcomed the fact that pornography had now been raised as a societal concern and called for “further reflection and study with the aim of finding solutions to the problem of pornography.”

Gordon Keast would go along with that. The White Rock Christian businessman, who is suing Telus for breach of his wireless contract, says Telus did the right thing in shutting down its pay-per-porn service. He’s going ahead with his suit anyway.

He told The B.C. Catholic that from a mere technical perspective, Telus and the telecom industry could be doing more, pointing out that in the U.K., age-verification for cell downloads has been in place for years, and adults must provide credit card, name, and postal code.

He also points out a landmark agreement on safer mobile use by teens and children was signed this month by major wireless companies in Europe.

That would be a start. Even better would be tackling the problem of pornography head-on.