I will not be writing a cheque to the Pink Cross Foundation and I will continue to only support Catholic organizations. Please see my next post.

I do not usually overly encourage others to give money to particular causes, and when I do they are always Catholic causes.  I do not like being coerced into giving to any particular cause; however, as a Franciscan, I appreciate honest appeals for financial help. As a Franciscan, I also desire to give to others, which is why I do not like coercion. But there is one very important limit to my giving: I will not give to any organization that promotes religious beliefs that contradict Catholic doctrine.

This actually includes some organizations that use the “Catholic” label, not to mention all Protestant organizations. Some may call this closed mindedness, but in reality it is the only honest response to the belief that the Catholic Church is the one true Faith, and to promote another faith in anyway is to work against this Faith.

I expect this kind of honesty from others. If a Protestant in some way works to promote Catholicism, I question his loyalty to his particular strain of Protestantism. I would of course encourage this as it would be a step toward full communion with that person and the Church, but I respect all who refuse to give to any cause connected with the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church teaches doctrine that contradict their own.

Some may say we must work together, and I agree. On common issues, we must work together, and we must also work together to make more issues common among us. In 2008, Proposition 8 in California was successful primarily through the cooperation of Catholics and Mormons. At the U.N. the Holy See (the Vatican) often allies itself with Islamic states on common moral issues. By working together, we better society as a whole and we make dialogue between us more open.

Open dialogue between Catholics and peoples of all other faith traditions is important to bring others to the Catholic Faith. Of course, the expectations of the peoples of other faiths is expected to be the same towards Catholics. To expect anything less would be to doubt and disrespect the faith of the one you are in dialogue with.

We must respect the faith of others, no matter how much we disagree with them. We must help others, no matter how much we disagree with their religious beliefs. The example that immediately comes to mind here is Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She helped many that no one else wanted to help, regardless of religious beliefs.

There is someone else that is helping those that no one else wants to help. In fact, many do not even want to acknowledge that they are persons. I am talking about persons involved in the pornography industry, and their greatest champion, Shelley Lubben.

Catholicism is all about marriage: the marriage of Christ and His Church. The Sacrament of Marriage between a man and a woman is an icon of God’s relationship with us and the very bases of Catholicism. An attack on marriage is an attack on the very foundation of Catholicism. The primary attacks on the Catholic Church today all revolve around marriage: so-called “same-sex marriage,” contraception, abortion, and even women’s ordination (the reason a woman cannot become a priest is the same reason why a woman cannot marry a woman).

While these attacks have always been around, they have become increasingly acceptable, even among Catholics. One of the reasons for this has been the ever increasing availability of pornography.

Pornography, or as Blessed Pope John Paul II referred to its most common form, pornovision, is prostitution (πόρνη (porne) in Greek means “prostitute”). Unlike other forms of prostitution where a person, usually a young woman or girl, is used by another person, usually a man, for a relatively short period of time, internet pornography allows a person to be used by millions of other persons 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as long as the internet exists (until the end of the world perhaps). It also allows persons that would otherwise have no contact with a prostitute to secretly use many prostitutes with the belief that nobody will ever find out, including the very prostitutes that they are using. This would include more than half the men that sit in the pews every Sunday, not to mention many priests and even bishops.

Can we blame them? These prostitutes seduce them. The only thing to do is stone the prostitutes.

What did Jesus say? “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

And what did Jesus say to that prostitute? “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.” Not only that, but there is a very strong tradition that this same former prostitute was the first person that Jesus showed Himself to after the Resurrection.

All prostitutes, from the ones walking the streets where even the cops are afraid to go alone, to the most glamorous centrefolds in the most “respectable” magazines, to even the young teen whose ex-boyfriend posted a picture on the internet of her from a night she deeply regrets, are victims. (And, yes, they all deeply regret it, even if they say they don’t.) They are, in essence, consenting to being raped, and sometimes, they are even raped without their consent. They are virtually raped every time someone uses their image, even many years after they have been saved from the pornography industry, but physical non-consensual rape is common in the production of hardcore pornography.

To ignore them, blame them, disrespect them, to see them as anything less than a child of God that has as much dignity and worth as you do is a grave sin.

We must help them. Many people are helping them, though mostly indirectly by helping consumers break free from the addiction of pornography and putting more restrictions on a basically unrestricted industry.

Shelley Lubben is doing something in a very direct way and in a way that very few can. Having been in the pornography industry herself, those that are still in the industry can trust her not to “stone” them, but lovingly help them find their dignity again, give them back a life.

But Shelley Lubben is only one person with very few resources to answer a great number of desperate cries for help. I don’t want to give away the ending of the video below, but without financial assistance, 2013 could be the last year of the Pink Cross Foundation, the only foundation that is doing this particular work in this way.

This is where I’m making an exception and giving money to a cause that promotes some religious beliefs that contradict Catholic doctrine. However, the very essence of the work that Pink Cross does is to help some of those most victimized by the assault of the Evil One on marriage. This assault on marriage, as I have already stated, is an assault on the very foundation of the Catholic Church. Shelley Lubben is nursing back to health, in a way that no one currently in the Catholic Church is even capable of, the casualties caught in the middle of Satan’s war on the Bride of Christ, and for that, I support her and encourage you to do the same.

Money is important, but so is prayer. Let’s give her both.

To Shelley Lubben I want to say: I support you, I admire you, I pray for you, and I love you. I also ask you to remember the woman that Christ forgave and first appeared to after the Resurrection. She sat at the Lord’s feet while her sister was “anxious and troubled about many things.” The work you do is very important, but don’t let “the good portion” “be taken away from” you.

To everyone else, I ask that you watch the video below and to be generous. If you don’t agree with my religious beliefs, I respect that, but I ask that you consider the great good that Shelley Lubben is doing.

If you repost this video anywhere, be careful how you do it. By default, YouTube will suggest other videos when one is over. When this video is over, almost all videos suggested by YouTube are pornographic. The very thing we are battling. This is why I posted this blog post on Facebook instead of the video directly from YouTube.

Again: I will not be writing a cheque to the Pink Cross Foundation and I will continue to only support Catholic organizations. Please see my next post.