A purely despicable article in CNA by Communion and Liberation member Matt McGuinness shows you what you need to know. McGuinness uses West's tactics, but takes them just a wee bit further.
Rightly, McGuinness points out that our deepest desires are for more than what lust can provide, and that seeking to use porn to fulfill these desires is bound for frustration.
But, incredibly - and it astonishes me as I write this - McGuiness, a member of a devout Catholic organization writing for a Catholic publication, encourages men to go all out for porn. You want it? Go for it! You'll see it doesn't help.
In other words, sin and sin boldly.
To do otherwise is to be LESS THAN HOLY, or so McGuinness implies. Do you desire to bring yourself to climax before lewd pictures on the internet but feel reluctant to do so? Heck, you're a piker! Don't be lukewarm or you'll be vomited out of Christ's mouth - go all the way, bro! See how far your lust will take you. To do otherwise is puritanical. To seek the virtuous path of turning away from porn is naive.
No, the solution is not to be found in mortification or penance alone, but in beginning to take our own humanity seriously; seriously enough to go to the depths of the inner meaning of our Baptism, which incorporated us into the Body of Christ, in the flesh.
McGuinness writes.
He continues
If you are already an amateur pornographer, why not consider taking it up “professionally” as it were and see how that makes you happy (or fails to)?
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I say it again. This is where the Christopher West nonsense leads.
West merely says that a man can put himself in sinful situations if he has "mature purity", and any who balk at this are judgmental puritans who are not maturely pure. McGuinness says a man should simply sin just to see how unsatisfying sin is - and to do otherwise is to fail "to go to the depths of the inner meaning of our Baptism." To sin, and to sin seriously, is, for McGuinness plunging the depths of our incorporation into "the Body of Christ, in the flesh". To sin is to be a brave Christian!
For West, seeking out temptation = mature purity.
For McGuiness a sin of the flesh = the flesh of the Body of Christ.
This is despicable.
Critics of West have seen this coming and we have been sounding the alarm. But we will continue to be pilloried as half-hearted old fashioned Christians who just ain't bold enough to plumb the depths of desire by equating sins of the flesh with the flesh of the Eucharist.
And McGuinness quotes Scripture to make this appalling argument. CNA should be mortified that they published this. C & L should be ashamed and embarrassed that this man is affiliated with them. Christopher West should be scared that we are finally seeing the fruits of the poison he has been spreading.
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ADDENDUM
McGuinness is actually saying that a sin of the flesh is a deep expression of our incorporation into the Body of Christ. He is actually saying that we must come through sin to get to the other side. This is gnostic nonsense; worse than that it is sick and smells of sulphur.
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ADDENDUM 2
McGuinness also proudly points to a scene in Fight Club - Fight Club of all movies! - as a model for whatever rationalization for lust he's trying to sell us. The scene he calls "marvelous" is the most sexually graphic and vile scene in a tremendously vile movie, and that's saying a lot. And this is his best example for why "following our lust" like "following our bliss" will get us to heaven.
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ADDENDUM 3
McGuinness also wrongly attributes to G. K. Chesterton the quote, "A man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God."
Even if that statement were true, the obvious reply would be, "Such a man is looking for God in all the wrong places."
And that is exactly what we mean by sin.
