By Abbey Jaroma
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON – Matt Fradd, a popular Catholic speaker who said he has dedicated his life to fighting pornography, teamed up with longtime youth minister Mark Hart, known as the “Bible Geek,” and LifeTeen to develop an app designed to assist young people find victory in their battle against porn.
“I worked as an apologist at Catholic Answers for three years and I would travel the country and give many talks, and I couldn’t help but feel that while I was up there proclaiming the basic Gospel message to thousands of teenagers, a good number of these young men and women were looking at hardcore pornography,” Fradd explained in a phone interview with Catholic News Service.
The app, Victory, is based on a calendar system where the user can mark the days they were victorious over porn, or had a setback, using colors. White represents the days they were victorious, and gray represents the days with a setback. A date with a green square around it signifies a day the user went to confession.
“One of the reasons this app is so helpful is that it enables people to view freedom from porn, not as a destination, but as a daily choice. This app enables us to daily track our progress and reflect upon our victories. ‘Look at that, I had five days in a row that I was victorious,’“ Fradd said.
After the setback is logged on the calendar, the app assists you in pinpointing what the trigger was so you are more prepared to log a white day the next time that trigger occurs. Users can choose from various “trigger” options – boredom, loneliness, anger, stress or tiredness. According to Fradd, this helps a person to gain self-knowledge.
The app includes a section for journaling, and there’s a prayer request button that will notify up to three “accountability partners,” as the program calls them, to pray for you. The app is private and requires a four-digit passcode to log in.
Rachel Penate, the assistant to the executive vice president of LifeTeen, said: “Not everyone struggles with pornography, or even the sin of lust, but everyone struggles with sin. It may require a bit of adaptation, but Victory can suffice as a tracking tool for any struggling with a particular sin.”
Being that Victory is geared toward Catholics, many have asked Fradd why it seems he is preaching to the choir, and his response is: “Because the choir is looking at porn.”
Victory was launched May 28, and since then it has been downloaded over 4,500 times, which is a testament to its popularity. The app is free, and the accompanying book included in the app costs $1.99. The price of the book goes straight back to the app, though, not only to update the current version, but to launch an android version later this summer.
There also is a donation page set up to increase funding for the app and it is donate.lifeteen.com/thevictoryapp. A donor matches every donation through that link.
“We just want to create the best resource possible,” Fradd explained about the donation page.
Fradd said he and his partners, Hart and LifeTeen, have high hopes for Victory – to bring the addictive and destructive nature of pornography to light and to provide supportive and private assistance to liberate young people who have a porn addiction.
“The hope of this app,” said Penate, “is that it will spark real and honest conversations about porn – why it needs to happen to heal from addiction; why it’s destructive; and to encourage teens that they are not alone in this fight: That it is OK to struggle.”
The developers hope it will be fruitful for the young church.
Also see:
Scourge of pornography must be combated
Copyright (c) 2015 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops