Learning to be Quick to Listen

Martina Purdy writes, About four years ago, I received a telephone call from a priest who invited a friend and I to a meeting. The priest didn’t actually say what the meeting was about – he just wondered if we might be interested in learning about his mission. We travelled to the Donegal border, and the priest introduced us to a man who told a remarkable story. He was a life-long Catholic, a weekly-mass goer, who was married with a family and for years had appeared to be living a good life. But he had a dark secret, a silent addiction, which had enslaved him for a long time: he could not stop himself looking at pornography. He said he would go to confession and receive absolution but the compulsion always got the better of him. Eventually he went to a particular priest who warned him that he was on the road to hell. This frightened him and he turned to prayer. The priest’s comments were not unlike Pope Francis’ warning last month when the Pontiff called pornography a work of the devil...