Pope hits out at TV sex and violence

Pope Benedict XVI has criticised TV and the internet for presenting sex and violence as "entertainment".

Speaking at Sydney's Barangaroo yesterday, the religious leader claimed that people must face up to the "erosion of the social environment".

While he firstly expressed concern at the effects of drugs and alcohol, he also warned of the "exaltation of violence and sexual degradation, often presented through television and the internet as entertainment".

He continued: "I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who actually do suffer violence and sexual exploitation 'explain' that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form, are considered merely entertainment?

"There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom and tolerance are so often separated from truth.

"This is fuelled by the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives.

"Experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair."