Cardinal says media’s portrayal of sex poses threat to future happiness of children

Feb 18, 2004 / 22:00 pm

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, archbishop of Westminster, said the media’s portrayal of sex poses a danger to the future health and happiness of children, reported the Irish Examiner.

The cardinal made this statement in an address at the University of Wales Swansea Theology Society.

 Although the cardinal said welcomes greater openness about sex, he suspects "more often than not" that there is no "real context" to the presentation of sex in the media.

The cardinal recognized that sex is used to sell goods in the marketplace. It is portrayed as "something, which has no real significance," said the cardinal, and love and commitment are hardly ever mentioned.

"Sex divorced from love, from commitment, from fidelity, and from the desire to have children is a trivialization of something profound and extraordinarily important," he said

“The breakdown in family life, the increase of divorce, the ease with which sexual relationships become 'passing' and peripheral, is in danger of inflicting very real and long-lasting damage on our society," he said.