Promote Godly Love this Valentine’s Day

By SHELLY HOLT

February is notable for the holiday of LOVE celebrated on Valentine’s Day. True love, Godly love, seeks the best for each other and is sacrificial. When love is exploited, it becomes self-serving and sinful. In the sinful darkness, one can go down many dangerous and destructive paths, including pornography, sexual addiction, domestic violence, and human trafficking.

The National Council of Catholic Women has a representative, Karen Painter, in the group Religious Alliance Against Pornography (RAAP). Available on RAAP's website (religiousalliance. org) is a helpful video series on the effects of pornography on mental health. RAAP introduces the series as follows:

RAAP seeks to promote "hope that is inspired by love that is authentic, heals, and endures." In this video course, Dr. Janet Dean explores topics around the issue of mental health and shares key principles for effectively helping others.

Emotional regulation and good mental health are significant components of maintaining sobriety. While it is not true that every person who uses porn has a diagnosable mental disorder, the principles in these videos can be useful in working with those who struggle.

Please note: Watching these videos does not give viewers a degree or competency as a counselor. They are intended to introduce you to the topics of mental disorders.

The RAAP blog features stories from people impacted by pornography and sexual addictions in a variety of ways. Here is an excerpt from the entry You Are Worth Something:

“You’re worth something,” sounds like a statement a motivational speaker would make at a self-help seminar. But instead, these are the words of a young woman referred to as “Tonya” (not her real name), made after government officials rescued her following months of her being sexually trafficked as a teenager. Tonya’s complete interview is on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website, at https://www.ice.gov/features/ human-trafficking-victim-sharesstory.

[The introduction to the ICE interview states:] "Tonya spent night after night in different hotel rooms, with different men, all at the command of someone she once trusted. She was held against her will, beaten, and made to feel like she had no other option at the time, all by the man she thought she loved. She felt she deserved it. Tonya felt she couldn’t escape. Afraid and confused, she thought the emotional and physical abuse she endured was her own doing.”

After her rescue, Tonya shared with her rescuers, “…emotionally, it took a toll on me. I didn’t feel…

I didn’t feel like I was a person. I felt really bad. There were nights I couldn’t sleep. There were times I thought about killing myself. I just thought about … the type of person I was. What would people think about me if they knew what I was doing? What my mom would say? Just stuff like that.”

“Most people do not understand the volume of trafficking that is going on in America, in our own backyard,” explained one experienced law enforcement officer in the PBS Frontline documentary film entitled Sex Trafficking in America

This film reports on the unimaginable stories of young women coerced into prostitution – and follows one police unit that is committed to rooting out sexual exploitation.

According to one official who deals with these “unimaginable stories,” the “recruitment is happening online, and on apps, and on social media, where all the kids are…”

The evil inherent in “the volume of trafficking that is going on in America” can certainly seem overwhelming to an ordinary person of faith.

The problem is so big! But as statesman Edmund Burke wrote during the 1700’s, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Fortunately, today there are many good men and women who are doing a great deal to combat the evils of sexual trafficking in America and other parts of the world. A simple Internet search for information about the various responses by these people of faith produces a list of organizations dedicated to those efforts.

Please go to the website (religiousalliance.org/ post/you-are-worth-something) to read the rest of the blog post.

I encourage you to pray about how you can personally make a difference and become Christ to one who is hurting due to any of these issues.

Finally, the Winona-Rochester Council of Catholic Women is sponsoring a free Lenten retreat with two options - east and west. Please see the flyer earlier in this article (page 12) for details!

Shelly Holt is the president of the Winona-Rochester Diocesan Council of Catholic Women. She may be reached at shellyholttotalwellness@gmail.com or 507-381-2842.