Bought With a Price

The average child today -- against the backdrop of a $13 billion a year porn industry -- first encounters pornography by age 11.

"In today's pornographic culture, Bought with a Price is mandatory reading for every man and parent," said Catholic author Matthew Kelly. "To ignore its call to protect the home and the heart is to leave our children vulnerable to a real and present evil."

The letter's title stems from Saint Paul's first letter to the Corinthians: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price" (6:19-20).

The new edition -- dated March 19, when Catholics recall the life of Saint Joseph, patron of fathers -- includes an array of practical resources designed to challenge men to be free of pornography and to protect their homes and children.

"Every home," said Bishop Loverde in today's re-issuing of his 2006 pastoral letter Bought with a Price, "now stands in the pathway of this attack on our children's innocence and purity. I call on every husband and father to renew his sacred commitment to his wife and children."

Throughout the 15,000-word letter, Bishop Loverde demonstrates how pornography "damages man's 'template' for the supernatural" by corrupting the faculty of sight. "Our natural vision in this world," he writes, speaking of the Christian's encounter with the Lord after death, "is the model for supernatural vision in the next."

"You may feel a sense of helplessness and that these sins are impossible to overcome," Bishop Loverde writes. "But with God you need never despair. You will win. He loves you and wants you to be free."