Why Don't People Get It?

I was reading an article of yet another crime involving pornography. It is again child pornography. This is child pornography is called "Class 4" or something similar under British law. The only worse classification is 5. The height of tragedy is that these images, concocted by Satan himself, were held by a child murderer. This child murderer was a child himself when he murdered a toddler. He was let out at age 18 and given an entirely new identity. All of this was in the interest of his safety.

A child, from a horrible background commits a horrible murder. And society believes it is too expensive to house the murderer and attempts "rehabilitation." Few people believe it is really possible, yet the attempts continue.

I am going to assert that as long as any pornography is considered "normal," then rehabilitation is impossible! As long as images of degradation of any human being are tolerated in the mainstream, these crimes will continue and escalate. It has not been proven that the murder of this child was sexually motivated, only that sexual assault was included. I really don't care about the motivation. I care about the results!

Child pornographers are "motivated" by greed. The result is pure evil. I know it can be argued, even by me, that those very pornographers were victims themselves at one point. That is where this evil comes from. It is passed from generation to generation, spreading and mutating like the horrible virus it is. The mutations are caused by each generation slacking more and more in accepting immorality.

Each of us has been there. I've seen the steamy movies and watched to the end just to know how it turned out. I have sought to balance an artistic eye, only to have it assaulted by an image I can't erase from my mind. I have had the nightmares that the evil I have allowed in my own life, has played on. I don't hold myself innocent here and instead, find that speaking out against these atrocities is a way to heal and help the images fade.

The idea that we are allowed to muck around in the mud and still come out clean is even an idea touted by many evangelical Christians. They have this image of us being "dungheaps covered in a blanket of snow" that is Christ's sacrifice for us. But that is just plain not good enough! Either God actually makes us clean, or He doesn't. This idea that we are merely "covered by Christ" is what has led many to a path of continued depravity.

The whole point to authentic Christianity is an actual uniting of ourselves with Christ on the cross! It is not a simple, "Gee thanks for dying for me Jesus, now I will try to do better because I love you so much." That is absurd, and yet it is what many churches teach, (and sadly many Catholics who are not in union with Church teaching.) Every time a crime is committed against a child we are to re-examine our own lives and nail to the Cross each crime we committed against Christ. Every time we caused a child to doubt the love of God, a "great millstone" is hung around our necks.

The only way to stop the advance of evil is to grow in holiness. The only person I can change is me. And the only Person I can truly allow to change me is Christ Himself. He lives in us all and we must recognize him at every turn and invite him to each moment in our lives.