"Sexual pleasure, a gift from God, is undermined by pornography." Pope Francis said this while discussing the "demon," or vice of lust and its traps. Like, for instance, "satisfaction without relationship that can generate forms of dependence”. Hence the admonition: "We must defend the love of intellect, heart, and body to give ourselves to one another. Winning the war against lust, or the 'cosification' of the other, can be a lifelong endeavor". "However," Bergoglio stressed, "the reward of this battle is the most important of all, because it is a matter of preserving the beauty that God wrote in his creation when he envisaged the love between man and woman. Which is to love oneself rather than use oneself". Regarding the evil of lust, Bergoglio stated, "Keep in mind that the sexual instinct is not condemned in Christianity. The Song of Solomon, a book from the Bible, is a wonderful love ballad between two engaged couples. Nonetheless, this exquisite facet of our being is not devoid of perils; in fact, St. Paul cautioned against certain Christians from engaging in an inappropriate regulation of sexuality".
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