Pope Francis has been delivering weekly sermons on the seven deadly sins. Last week, he addressed gluttony—and this week, it was the turn of what he described as the "demon of lust." In his Vatican address Wednesday, Francis said sexual pleasure is a "gift from God" but warned that it is being "undermined by pornography" and should be "disciplined with patience," the BBC reports. "Satisfaction without a relationship can generate forms of addiction," the pope said. He warned that lust can lead to "toxic" and possessive relationships. "Lust plunders, it robs, it consumes in haste, it does not want to listen to the other but only to its own need and pleasure," he said, per the Telegraph.
"Winning against the battle of lust can be a lifelong undertaking," but the prize is preserving the beauty of love, "which makes us believe that building a story together is better than going on adventures; cultivating tenderness is better than bowing to the demon of possession; serving is better than conquering," the pope said, per Vatican News. "Because if there is no love, life is lonely." Francis didn't mention recent criticism of his head of doctrine, Victor Manuel Fernandez, but the sermon was seen as a response to attacks on Fernandez from conservative Catholics over a book he wrote decades ago, the Guardian reports.
In 1998's The Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality, Fernandez, a cardinal from Argentina, discussed male and female orgasms and described women as "insatiable," per the Telegraph. The book is now out of print. After conservative Catholics became aware of it last week, they demanded that Francis fire Fernandez. The cardinal said he had written the book when he was a young priest and he "certainly" wouldn't write it now. (More Pope Francis stories.)
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