Question of Faith
A weekly question of faith answered by Cleveland Catholics. Fr. Damian Ference, Vicar of Evangelization and Deacon Mike Hayes Director of Young Adult Ministry in the Diocese of Cleveland co-host with frequent guests from the Diocesan Office who join in the conversation. Sponsored by Briefcase Marketing--check them out at https://www.Briefcase.marketing
Question of Faith
If My Phone is Causing Me To Sin...Should I Throw It Out?
SPONSOR: Briefcase Marketing
Navigating a world dominated by smartphones poses challenges to spiritual integrity and mental health. The episode addresses the risks associated with gambling and pornography, encouraging accountability and healthy habits in the digital age.
• Overview of the impact of smartphones on faith
• Discussion on gambling culture during events like the Super Bowl
• Mental health trends related to smartphone usage
• Examining the addiction crisis linked to pornography and gambling
• Strategies for setting boundaries with technology
• Importance of real-world human connections
• Call for accountability in dealing with addictions
• Reflection on the Catholic Church’s perspective on gambling and morality
BREAKING NEWS: Pope Francis responds to J.D. Vance's Ordo Amoris.
Vatican News Article on response to Ordo Amoris
SPONSOR: Briefcase Marketing
At Briefcase Marketing, we create marketing that inspires action and delivers results. We will:
- Clarify your message to attract the right audience.
- Streamline your website to convert more visitors into customers, donors or volunteers.
- Create consistency to build trust and deepen relationships across every marketing platform (Emails, Ads, Social Media, Etc).
Check out just two of their recent successful clients who we know well.
Theology of the Body CLE
St. John Cantius Parish
Readings for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Church Search: Chapel at St. Ignatius High School & St. Pat's on Bridge Avenue
SPONSOR: Briefcase Marketing
On today's Question of Faith. If my phone is causing me to sin, should I throw it out? Hey everybody, this is Question of Faith. I'm Deacon Mike Hayes. I am the Director of Young Adult Ministry here in the Diocese of Cleveland.
Speaker 2:And I'm Father Damian Ferencz, the Vicar for Evangelization.
Speaker 3:And I am Francine Costantini, the Director of Youth Ministry for the Diocese.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the show Francineantini, the Director of Youth Ministry for the Diocese. Welcome back to the show, francine.
Speaker 1:Thank you, welcome back. So a bunch of things today. Super Bowl, by the way Fly Eagles fly.
Speaker 2:That was the worst Super Bowl I've ever watched in my entire life. It was so boring. I mean, I wanted the Chiefs to win, but I really didn't care, I just wanted a good game, and it was miserable. Yeah, it was just a blowout, and the commercials weren't even that good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agreed Everything you know, just kind of meh, and yet we still watched. Oh yeah, we watched, you know.
Speaker 2:Anyways, a lot of people bet on that game. Oh yeah, absolutely. What was the spread? Do you know?
Speaker 1:Was it eight points or something? I didn't look at that until halftime, which was I think it was plus 16.
Speaker 2:Or minus 16?
Speaker 3:for the Eagles, I should say, but they adjusted it as the game went.
Speaker 2:I wonder what it was before.
Speaker 1:Yes, so online gaming sites will give you the opportunity to bet throughout the game, not just before the game. It used to be if you took the Eagles plus three, the Eagles will get three points added to their score, if you understand gambling. But as the game goes on now, online betting sites will add to that. They'll say okay, the other team's already up 10, so let's make the spread 12 and see if someone will take that bet, which is designed for people like me, with compulsive personalities to bet on these things, and so, because I know myself, I don't bet on these things.
Speaker 2:I know myself I work too hard for my money and I don't like to gamble. I know myself I work too hard for my money and I don't like to gamble. But it certainly is something that you can do, not just at the casino or in Vegas, but now you can do this on your phone, which is one of the reasons we asked the question.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it's not just gambling, but it's pornography, it's social media, it's all sorts of things that can be on your phone, and we're getting closer to Lent now. So what is a Catholic to do? If you do have these struggles? What's the response, francine, what's your experience been, especially with young people and phones?
Speaker 3:Well with phones. If you just look at, you can just Google it and you'll find a million different sites that will have charts that will show the advent of the smartphone not just the cell phone but the smartphone and the increase in sales of the smartphone and the increase in mental health disorders in young people Like it's. You can overlay those two lines and they're identical.
Speaker 2:I know the break in generation from Generation Z to what's called the Alpha Generation is 2012. And 2012 was the year that over half of Americans had a smartphone. And there's a couple of books like Abigail Schreier has one and the Jonathan something or other. I forget. I read both books last year, but it talks about spending more time in recreation online than in person, and that's a new thing for a generation. But it's not just younger people. There are older people too who spend a lot of their time on their phone.
Speaker 1:We just had a workshop on pornography last night, actually, with the deacons, and one of the things that the presenter said to us was that you know, there are very well-meaning people who give their older parent a device in order to have them stay connected more easily, you know, through FaceTime or calls or texts or whatever, and then they get curious after they start to learn to use the phone and they're becoming now the highest rate of people who are addicted to pornography, online gambling, social media as well.
Speaker 2:Especially if you are older and a widow and you're lonely, yes, lonely right. And you're finding connection there? Yes, and it used to be the case that if you wanted pornography you had to work for it. You had to go to the seedy part of town and find a magazine somewhere. Now you can be. I talked to some priests who were at that conference yesterday.
Speaker 1:They said the age that young people are first coming across pornography is six or seven on their phone now, and that's the average. That's the average, so that means some people are doing it younger than that.
Speaker 3:Because a lot of the porn sites will target younger audiences by having keywords that children would look for lead them in a different direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's not that the young people are going out looking for it, it's looking for them. It's looking for them. Yeah, it's targeting them.
Speaker 1:And then once they find them, they have ways of keeping them there, you know in terms of pornography. So it will widen. The arousal template is one of the things that Dr Carnes is one of the experts in this area. He said in the shadows of the net is his book, where, you know, you start to look at different images that you never saw before and you didn't realize that that was something that would attract you and you're like, oh never knew that that, that was something that would attract you and you're like, oh never knew that.
Speaker 1:And so now you keep going down that road and you can find videos that will only show you the things that you want to see, as opposed to going to get a magazine, where you might not see anything that you're attracted to. So it has the ability to keep you coming back more easily.
Speaker 2:Well, and then isn't it true too, that the stuff you look at can get weirder and weirder?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's right, and you have young men in their 20s who are struggling with erectile dysfunction because they're looking at all sorts of images that no human being has ever had the capacity to see all at once. And now you to be with one woman, monogamously married, can be very difficult for you. So what do you do? Do you throw your phone out? Do we say, okay, this is enough, we have to get rid of all phones? Obviously, we can't do that, but there's got to be some way that we can limit our intake and increase our time in the real world, with real people living in a chaste, loving way, where we're not objectifying folks and simply getting dopamine hits all day. So what are some ways to do that?
Speaker 3:I think the family meal, I think the family meal is so essential, even if the family is two people. But or even if the family is one person. I mean, how many of us have, you know, we have lunch by ourselves and we're on our phone while we're doom scrolling through lunch, but keeping the phone away from meals and keeping the phone out of bed, not scrolling on the phone at night. If you are lying in your bed, your bed is for sleeping or reading or marital activities. But not phone.
Speaker 2:True say it. That's exactly right.
Speaker 3:And I think when we bring the phone everywhere it becomes like I used to travel a lot. I still travel quite a bit, for work sometimes and for family and the airports are very different now than they were when I was younger and I would travel. You would meet interesting people in the airport. You would just even look at interesting people. You would see interesting dress, you would see interesting things and you would people watch at the airport and meet interesting people On the planes. You would have conversations with folks and now everyone has their headphones on and is looking at a screen and nobody is interacting with anyone else.
Speaker 2:You're speaking in hyperbole because not nobody.
Speaker 3:I know, but I would say this that's true.
Speaker 2:Here's my way to find interesting people in the airport. Find someone who's reading a book, because those are the people that we that, because I, I read a lot and I love reading in airports and on the plane. And if you find someone who's got a book, that'll be an interesting person for you to talk to. Um, and it's also a yeah, it's like hey, here's an indication that I'm interested in having a conversation. I'm interested in reading a book. I, if I'm interested in reading a book, I'll have a conversation with you.
Speaker 3:And I see this knowing the first thing I do when I get on that plane is I put my AirPods in Like I want quiet, and so I actually don't even have music on often. It's just the noise canceling, but it also indicates that I'm not open for conversation.
Speaker 2:You're literally putting plugs in your ears so that other people don't make their way into your ear. Yeah, now there can be the occasional traveler who's annoying as all get out, but sometimes I mean, I've had great conversations on planes too, but sometimes I want to read and don't want to talk to someone, right?
Speaker 1:Right, and there's that right.
Speaker 2:We all have different things.
Speaker 1:Some people just want the world to go away on a plane or you know, if you know there's a baby crying, you know it's not see. I find that that that's always an opportunity too. You know, it's like I remember there was a woman sitting next to me and she and her little four-year-old was next to me and she was like, oh you, poor man I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, this kid's going to scream the whole flight and I was like no, no, he'll be fine.
Speaker 1:And so here's one where your phone came in handy. Actually, I said you like doggies. I said to him, and he goes, yeah. And so I started showing him pictures and videos of my dog and he just drifted off to sleep after about 10 seconds.
Speaker 1:I was the hero for the day. I mean, at the same time, I mean I was, you know, I felt bad. You know I was like, okay, this is. You know, I was ready to put the headphones in. I was like, oh, don't worry, I got my headphones, he's not gonna bother me. But you know, I took an opportunity instead to make a friend.
Speaker 2:This woman, um yeah good, no good, I was gonna say, there's certainly some things that are just by their nature like, like evil pornography, so you don't want to be looking at that on your phone, but how about social media?
Speaker 2:or how about gambling? Because these were a couple of things that we did want to talk to. I did a little bit of research in the catechism, so Article 2413, games of chance or gambling or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice, so that's good. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others.
Speaker 2:So let's say you have a father of the family, or it could be a mother, but I think men gamble more than women and gets his paycheck and decides I know, I have to pay for groceries, education, bills of the house. However, I am going to gamble instead and maybe, if I win, I'll make more money. Then, before you know it, the money that was supposed to be spent taking care of family has been wasted. That's an act of injustice. So in that way, or even if you don't have a family, if you're, the money that may need to go to the poor can go in service. So it is allowed to do some gambling for the sake of entertainment. The church isn't against that, but it could be a violation of justice or an act of injustice, depending upon how much money is gambled and spent, and all that.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and the compulsion you know ends up making it worse. You know if you get addicted to this stuff. Now those things become commonplace for you. You know you're where every week you go and throw your paycheck down the sewer.
Speaker 2:You know and that's the next line in the Catechism the passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement, and we human beings are made to be free, not slaves, and we can become slaves to all sorts of things drink, money, sex power, popularity, all these things. So we want to avoid that for the sake of being free.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and I think just taking that notion of entertainment and having a sense of how much is in my budget for entertainment and this is how I'm going to spend my money, it's a different perspective on gambling. It's not I'm trying to win money, I'm trying to make more money than I have and I think this is a calculated risk If you look at gambling, because there's a reason. All the companies are making all the money and want you to gamble.
Speaker 3:It's because they're making the money not you, not me and so having that mindset of this is how I'm spending my fun money, Just like if I was going to go out to a restaurant, if I was going to go out to see a movie. I'm going to spend my money doing this because I find this entertaining, If you have it in that category.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I do with concerts. I love live music. I love going to shows. I go by myself sometimes and I do meet strangers there, but also I go with good friends. I like to get a meal beforehand, see the show, then unpack the show afterward. The thing about a concert to me which is different than gambling is you always win because you know what you're going to see your favorite artist and then at the end you think it's over. No, they come out and play more songs for you and you're like, yeah, winning, winning. So, yeah, that's in moderation. You know we're getting back to virtue here.
Speaker 1:Exactly I mean. So I know a little bit about gambling, so I enjoy playing blackjack and gambling. So I enjoy playing blackjack and I enjoy occasionally making a wager on a sporting event, maybe, but in general I would say now this is just going to a casino. We'll add the online element to this in a second right. So, going to a casino, everybody in the casino I think it's 75% of the people who will be in the casino at some point will be up. So that's three out of four people will win and be ahead on the money that they've gambled. Right, but 90% of those people give it back to the casino. So the casino for stuff for every $100 that someone wins, the casino makes $105 off of somebody else. That's just a statistic that we can't argue with, right? It's just the way it is. But for me, like I'll tell a story about myself which will be embarrassing and it'll be fine, right, it might help somebody.
Speaker 1:So my friend decided that for his bachelor party, all he wanted to do was go to Atlantic City and go gambling. So I went to him and I didn't know how to play blackjack. I didn't know anything else. We have a friend who's actually a professional gambler. He's actually on the tour, right, and so he taught me how to play blackjack. Never forgive him, because now I'm stuck with this, right. And so I sit down and I lose $100 within 20 minutes, right. But now I think I know how to play, but it cost me $100 to learn. So I go to the ATM machine, I get another $100 out and I sit down and I played for about two hours before I lost that $100. But now I really know how to play, right, so I go back and get $200. So I got to win the $200 back, right.
Speaker 1:I kid you not, I sat at that table all night and did not know what time it was. And so my friends came back the next morning and they see me sitting at the blackjack table, like hit, like half asleep, and they look down and they see that I've won a good deal of my money back at this point, right, and it's because I got lucky. It's not any skill here. And they said have you been here all night? I was like I don't know what time is it. They're like 9 am. I'm like, yeah, maybe it's time to go. And they're like, yeah, and so I know my own compulsions, right, that could be really dangerous. So, like, like we could see you losing your house, like, stop this and that's intentional too, isn't it, that there are no windows in?
Speaker 2:no casinos and no clocks and they pump oxygen in to keep you alert. Um, yeah, that's the point exactly. I've been down to jack because they have food in there late night, when all the other restaurants are closed, so you can go in there and buy food that's a cleveland casino for those listening out of town.
Speaker 1:But now add an online element to this. Now you're by yourself. You don't have your friends watching you. If I go to the casino now, I set a limit on what I'm going to spend, and I take my wife with me so that she will. She puts a limit on what she spends. Yeah, pretty much right, and what I'll do is, if I win any money, I just hand it to her. So now I'm not giving it back, I just take the winnings and I hand it to her and keep playing with their money. Now, marion's chips yes, these are Marion's and they don't go anywhere else, and so that's worked out nicely, and you can put limits on your online gambling. Like, if you're on let's take DraftKings as an example you could say I don't want to spend more than $25 a week, and you can, like, set that limit on there. But you're the one controlling that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's your credit card, that's there. And then you're like I'm going to go up and then you have a drink and you're like more so yeah, we're promoting responsible gambling by setting these limits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the person's controlling it.
Speaker 3:It's just like me with my. Instagram limits. I have setting for Instagram that limits my intake for the day and yet I can hit 15 more minutes or ignore for the day, and it's very easy Well when they run commercials for alcohol on TV or gambling, they always say if you have a gambling problem, do this, or if you have an alcohol.
Speaker 2:But those folks who are having the problem, it's very difficult not to do it. So some people can do things in moderation and others can't.
Speaker 1:Well, and everybody thinks they're the exception or the rule.
Speaker 2:Right, I could handle it is a sign you probably can't. I've mentioned it before on this show I'll go on. If I do a novena, I'll go on a fast, so just hard. Nine days without any instagram. That makes the entry back in helpful because, wow, yeah, I was doom scrolling or looking at reels or sending garris like 20 reels in 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:The other thing, too, with with gambling I think that we forget, is unlike, um, unlike drugs or alcohol, uh, gambling does. You know you can't, you can't stop a lot easier with gambling. You know people don't stop unless they run out of money yeah, rock bottom is out of money, right yeah, yeah, like people don't hit a wall the way they overdose on drugs dangerously right you know, obviously, but they but gambling, they kind of can kind of keep going until you know have run out of five credit cards, you know.
Speaker 2:And sometimes all those addictions come together Because you ran out of money. Then you hit the drugs to numb yourself or you hit the alcohol and before you know it it gets out of hand.
Speaker 1:Oh, and a stat for the Super Bowl. I don't know if you know this, so let me ask it as a question. What do you think the Super Bowl is the single highest day for?
Speaker 2:Sex trafficking and prostitution.
Speaker 1:In the city that it's in. That is actually a belief. True, for the most part, but it was something else that I was thinking of. Do you know? Domestic violence. It's the highest single day of domestic violence incidents in the calendar year, almost every year.
Speaker 3:In the US.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you think about it. You know you lost a ton of money. You're in a high testosterone kind of environment. You know you're probably drinking if you're at a Super Bowl party. You know all those things fuel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also know that the highest like percentage of domestic violence is between non-married partners. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:It's also interesting, also interesting yeah, so gambling could become an opportunity for sin if it gets out of control.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think what's most important in terms of any addiction and this online stuff is it's so easy to hide everything and not let anyone know what you're doing, which is why there's covenant eyes for people who struggle with pornography. I don't know if there's something for gambling, but hopefully you have a good friend, spiritual director, therapist, confessor where someone knows what's going on in your head and in your heart and that, even if you have a confessor, that it's not just you're confessing these sins to assuage guilt. You actually want to find answers, healing too. So find somebody who can hold you accountable and you could say dude, I spend this much time on this, or I spend a lot of money, or I did this that way. You've named it. Now you can deal with it, yeah so?
Speaker 1:and the other thing, this doesn't just affect the user. You know, pornography addiction can affect families, can affect marriages, can affect all kinds of things gambling addiction the same thing, yeah and it perpetuates the people who are.
Speaker 2:if there's a desire for it, then people are going to make it. So people are being used, you know Right.
Speaker 1:I know the guy who did the thing last night, the priest who talked to us last night about pornography addiction. One of the reasons he got into this was because one of his students came to him and she had been filmed by a partner and then that video got distributed to everybody and he was like I'm in in getting rid of this you know, because he was just so sick to his stomach over his student getting abused in that way.
Speaker 1:So breaking news now. So just a little update from last week. So Pope Francis talked a little bit about JD Vance's order on Morris that we talked about last week. So Pope Francis talked a little bit about JD Vance's Ordo Amoris that we talked about last week, and so he put out a letter today. I would say that you should read it. I read it this morning, read it this morning. Yeah, one of the things it's 10 points.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's 10 points. I'm looking for the one. The true Ordo Amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan, that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all without exception. So there we go.
Speaker 2:Well, our message last week was consistent with that. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:And Jesus, by the way. We forgot to say that last week. The parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus calls us to have not only the folks that are close to us.
Speaker 2:But also who's right in front of you.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And the Good Samaritan finds somebody in a ditch, that's the person who's right in front of you. Your order of love goes right there, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect, okay. Briefcase marketing, Francine, do you know?
Speaker 3:briefcase marketing.
Speaker 1:I do not Tell me about it. Okay, so they make sure your church doesn't have scattered messaging or bad website. They take care of all those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:They create marketing for your church and church-based ministry that inspires action and delivers results.
Speaker 1:They will clarify your message to attract the right audience. Streamline your website to convert mere visitors into donors, volunteers, parishioners. They'll create consistency to build trust and deepen relationships across every marketing platform your social media, your advertising, your emails.
Speaker 2:And Francine, you may say well, FD, I need some proof. Well, go read the Google reviews. They've done such superb work with our friends at Theology of the Body, Cleveland and St John Cancius Parish in Tremont, and we'll put samples of that work in our show notes. Make it easier for Francine to check out and for you, our listeners, to check out too.
Speaker 1:Briefcase Marketing is no gamble. They'll give you a clear message with a compelling website. They will help you get more donors. Given your mission, they'll give you more volunteers ready to serve. They will help you get more donors, given your mission, they'll give you more volunteers ready to serve. They'll help people share your message and when they share your message, they become your advocates.
Speaker 2:So, in a responsible way, roll the dice. Visit their website. That's briefcasemarketing. We've got their link in the show notes, or text 308-627-1262. And our pal Dan First will take good care of you at Briefcase Marketing. Amen, amen.
Speaker 1:All right Readings for this coming week. Sick Sunday in Ordinary Time. I like the first reading this week from Jeremiah. Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord. So it's sort of like what we were just talking about now, placing our trust in things that are not of God, but instead, you know, trying to put our trust in things like odds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and our psalm talks about. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord. With our, in our jubilee year of hope, here it you know blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked, nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, but delights in the law of the Lord.
Speaker 2:And I'll take the Beatitudes from the gospel. They throw everything upside down. You would think, if you are wealthy, or if you are satisfied, or if you're super happy, then everything's going well. And we're told blessed are you who are poor. Blessed are you who are not hungry? Blessed are you who are now weeping? What we find in the Beatitudes is Jesus himself, who is both God and man, was poor, experienced hunger, weeping, so he embodies all those things and then he finds himself in solidarity with all of us who have, so we don't lose hope when we're going through hard times and suffering. I find the Beatitudes so hopeful and helpful, especially during this Jubilee year.
Speaker 1:Very good Ignite Conference coming up on February 22nd. That'll be at St Ignatius High School. If you've never been in their chapel, that's where we'll have our holy hour at that time, for when we have the holy hour at about 3 o'clock on that Saturday. So we'll have a holy hour, then we'll have a Eucharistic procession from there to St Patrick's on Bridge.
Speaker 2:I hope it snows, just so it would make for great photography.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, exactly. Higher degree of difficulty too, let's go baby Every pilgrimage should be right. So our church, church this week, the chapel at St Ignatius High School and St Patrick's on Bridge Check them both out Awesome. Francine Costini, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. We'll see you all again next time here. On Question of Faith, you.
