Fr. Jerry Pokorsky: Changing the World with Pure (or Impure) Thoughts

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture, March 17, 2025

Fr. Jerry Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington who has also served as a financial administrator in the Diocese of Lincoln. Trained in business and accounting, he also holds a Master of Divinity and a Master’s in moral theology. Father Pokorsky co-founded both CREDO and Adoremus, two organizations deeply engaged in authentic liturgical renewal. He writes regularly for a number of Catholic websites and magazines.

Sometimes our thoughts are holy and fruitful. Other times they are shameful and destructive. We change the world when our thoughts take flesh: one thought, word, and deed at a time.

St. Francis of Assisi famously threw himself into a thorn bush to resist the affliction of impure thoughts. Most of us understand the intensity of the temptation. In the 1980s, a famous young pop star said on TV that she left the Catholic Church as a teenager when she learned that an impure thought, committed with full knowledge and consent, is a mortal sin.

How can an impure thought without repentance change our eternal destiny? Let’s examine how one impure thought changes a life and a nation.

An impure thought usually begins with an occasion of sin and a deliberate impure glance. Perhaps the Devil is poking one’s imagination with an obscene pitchfork. Without resistance, an impure fantasy and the whole array of external sins of impurity follow. Impurity affects the way we think, the way we behave, the way we dress, and the way we view others.  …

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