Pope Francis has admitted that the clergy give into the vice and temptation of watching online pornography.
In a seminar in Rome on Monday, the pontiff warned against the "devil" of watching pornography, but revealed that priests and nuns who watch online porn are doing wrong.
The head of Catholic Church, 85, made the remarks in response to a question about how the new generation of the clergymen and women have immersed in social media, and how they can use digital tools to "share the joy about being Christian, without forgetting our identity or being too exposed and arrogant”.
In reply to this question, Francis implored the seminarians to use social media “to advance, to communicate” while also warning them about the dangers, "namely digital pornography."
He continued to say: “I will not say, ‘raise your hand if you have had at least one experience of this’.
"But if each of you think you have had the experience or temptation … It is a vice that so many people have. So many laymen, so many laywomen, and also priests and nuns.
"The devil enters from there. And I’m not just talking about digital pornography like that of child abuse, this is already degeneracy. Dear brothers, pay attention to this.”
However, he advised prospective priests to delete any such sites from their phone "so you won't have the temptation in hand".
This is because church teaching sees pornography as an offence against chastity.
And despite having a whopping 64.3 million followers on Twitter, the pope added that he does not use social media, “because I arrived too late” - and instead gave permission for a team of people to manage his various social media accounts.
In fact, Francis revealed was only given mobile phone when he became a bishop 30 years ago. He described it as being the size of a shoe, and said he only made one call, to his sister, before giving the telephone back.
The full text of the event, which took place in Italy, was published by the Vatican on Wednesday. The pope also addressed the digital world generally, and said that people needed to "know how to use it well" rather than being constantly distracted.
In late 2022, the Vatican was left in an embarrassing predicament, after Pope Francis's official Instagram account liked a photo of a Brazilian glamour model, Natalia Garibotto.
They were forced to “seek explanations from Instagram ” after the like became visible for several days before being unliked.
Despite this, Garibotto claimed to have gained 600,000 followers as a result of the incident. And Garibotto's management company made the most of the publicity, and reposted the liked image with a message saying they had “received the Pope’s official blessing”.
The model, who has over 3.3 million followers, also joked: “At least I’m going to heaven.”
However, the Vatican said at the time that “we can exclude that the ‘like’ came from the Holy See”.
