Matt Lorens’s story as an immigrant escaping communist Poland is one of perseverance, determination to succeed no matter the cost to his soul, and finally allowing the Holy Spirit to guide his steps to trust the plan God has already set in place for his life.
Matt’s father helped his family escape Poland and fled to Germany when Matt was a teen. His father worked hard to allow his family to live freely and brought Matt, his two brothers, and his mother to the United States when he was 15. He knew no English and was thrown into a public high school in New York City. English was emphasized every day, and he quickly picked up the language.
“At the time we left Poland, it was because it was a communist state and my dad was running away,” he said. “He got the rest of the family into the states. It wasn’t easy. He arrived with $400 in his pocket and had to start making a living from scratch.”
While Matt was still in Poland, his father sent him a computer at the age of 14 in 1986. Despite the limitations of the technology, Matt was a quick study.
“Back then, we didn’t even have hard drives, this is 1986, so the very early stages of video gaming. Already, I was doing a little programming. We had to hook it up to a black and white TV. Even then, I loved to design things, simple graphics, even on those cheesy computers back then. I came to the states and played Nintendo and got really into it.”
Despite the language barriers, Matt thrived in school, eventually completed college, and was finally able to bring his future wife, with whom he had attended elementary school in Poland, over to the states.
“We were childhood sweethearts,” he said. “After I graduated, I went back to Poland and brought her back to the states with me. There was a period of time when we did not see each other for 6-8 years.”
Aneta, Matt’s wife, adjusted to America quickly. She was an English teacher in Poland, which made the transition easier. She attended college and worked on Wall Street.
Matt served in the United States Army and trained as a nurse, medic, and a truck driver. When his time in the Army and his college degree in nursing and biology were completed at Queens College in New York, he thought he would be a doctor. The more he learned about Information Technology and computers, however, the more he realized where his passion truly was.
Matt’s father started a business cleaning skyscrapers in New York. Matt helped him occasionally for extra money. A man who worked as an IT professional at Planned Parenthood Federation of America was one of his dad’s customers. Matt learned about a job opening with Planned Parenthood through him, and Matt was hired. Planned Parenthood headquarters was his first real job as an IT professional and website developer.
“I worked as a web developer, graphic designer, and my main occupation was web production and programming,” Matt said. “I mostly worked on their main website, as well as Teen Wire, which was the offshoot for teenagers. It was a separate website entity. I would upgrade the features to make it easier for minors to interact with Planned Parenthood. I was hired in 2001 when I was still in my early 30s. I never considered myself as someone who supports abortion. I was always Catholic. I had no exposure to the reality of abortion in the corporate setting. I admit that my faith was not that strong at the time, or I would not have been working for PPFA. I never really gave it much thought. I loved to program websites and I wasn’t paying much attention to what they were all about.”
While Teen Wire itself is no longer functioning, in 2001, it was a big deal. It was a teen’s way to access information about sexuality and “sexual health.” Planned Parenthood was, and continues to be, at the forefront of getting any and all information about sex, alternate lifestyles, abortion, and normalizing any kind of sexual activity targeted to children.
“At the time, I was addicted to porn, so it didn’t bother me,” Matt said. “Now, looking back I clearly see all the wrongs and how those kinds of things, when kids come across them online, can destroy their faith, relationships with their parents, and the possibility of having a healthy sex life in the future as adults. The whole thing is wrong. I remember in high school our physical education teacher came in with a banana and a condom. So, Planned Parenthood has taken that a step further by creating animated videos. While they do discuss preventing sexually transmitted diseases and all those things, at the same time they are presuming kids are having sex with multiple partners. As though children cannot possibly control themselves or parents cannot put parameters in place to protect their kids from actions they are not prepared for emotionally or physically.”
There is never a presumption or encouragement for kids to consider abstinence from Planned Parenthood. Young teens and adults are always expected to act on their urges and feelings, and when they do, Planned Parenthood is ready to step in and eliminate the consequences of the actions they promoted. For a price. That’s their business model.
Matt was married while working for Planned Parenthood during his ten-year career with the “nonprofit.” While he and his wife were both Catholic, they never questioned it. Planned Parenthood did not exist in Poland.
“I feel like I was blind to what was going on,” Matt said. “It says in the Bible that ‘you have ears, but you do not hear, and you have eyes, but you do not see,’” Matt said. “It took me a long time to realize this is wrong, and I asked myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ I did have a conversion. At that time, I was still at Planned Parenthood.”
Matt describes his conversion story a little differently than most people of faith.
“When people think about conversion, they think you were an atheist and you become a Christian,” he said. “But here I am a ‘Catholic’ guy suddenly becoming an authentic Catholic. Many people claim to be Catholic and are nothing like that at all. The scales fall off your eyes and you start seeing what you are really looking at.”
Matt believes his spiritual blindness was due in part to the sinful life he was living. His addiction to pornography was something that held him back and kept him in denial. Through his conversion process, this was something that God broke for him overnight.
“Pornography is a real addiction,” he said. “Once you get into it, it is very difficult to get out. I think God got me out of it, to be honest, because I was too weak to quit it myself. For me, it happened overnight. I am different than I was. I can’t explain it, it is a God thing, and I am so grateful.”
Matt struggled with continuing to work at Planned Parenthood for two years after his conversion experience. He was scared to sacrifice the income and security for his family. He and his wife had two children while he worked there, and the benefits were wonderful. His second child, his son, was born with Cerebral Palsy.
“We lived in a high-end neighborhood and were so money-focused,” Matt said. “We thought we needed to save for my daughter’s college. Taxes were high, we both made six-figure incomes, but we never had money. It is crazy.”
Despite the fact that everything rationally told him he needed a backup plan to provide for his family, Matt finally decided to fully trust God and found the courage to leave in 2011. His life was radically changed.
As Abby Johnson, the founder of And Then There Were None, often explains, people do not understand how difficult it is for abortion workers to leave the industry. It is not like leaving a job as a waitress or a typical company. It is vastly different—more like leaving a cult. The spiritual warfare is very intense. Workers are fleeing the enemy, and he is going to do everything to put up barriers and place doubt in their minds to think that they can’t leave, or if they did, they need to go back.
“Trust in God is so crucial. If you are a true believer with faith, you don’t worry about tomorrow and what it is going to bring,” Matt said.
“I run an online store. I have no idea how much money I am going to make tomorrow, if any. I don’t have a regular paycheck. I just learned to not worry about the things of this world anymore. Even if you have a secure job and a great paycheck, you could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that is the end of your life. It didn’t matter that you had a paycheck. Now you have to face God.”
Today, Matt and his wife are caretakers for their son who is wheelchair-bound, deaf, and blind. At first, Matt wondered if God was punishing him for his time at Planned Parenthood through his son’s disability, but even with the daily challenges, Matt and his wife are fully aware of what a gift their son is to them. His life nor his challenges are punishment. When someone asked him shortly after the birth of their son why they didn’t just abort, Matt was shocked.
“I would never have aborted my child. I could not even believe that this was said to me, even while working at Planned Parenthood.”
Matt felt called to open an online Etsy store selling custom rosaries, sacramentals, prayer cards, and a wide variety of things for both Catholics and Protestants.
“My goal is to bring people to faith through beautiful art,” Matt said. “I go to churches and photograph stained glass, statues, icons from the Eastern Orthodox faith, then enhance the images. I want to preserve the art. Churches are constantly closing and the art is lost. Sometimes they are even converted into nightclubs.”
Matt is also creating games for kids using saints’ stories and the Catechism to engage and build their faith in a fun and positive way. “I want to give parents a way to cultivate and talk about their faith. It is designed for five-year-olds to late teens, and this special project is still in the works,” Matt says. “My hope for this is that it be an excellent tool for parents to engage their kids in their faith. My desire is for kids to ask their parents to play because it is fun, and they enjoy the time with their parents.” He continues to raise funds to get the game into production. After publishing content on the internet for years with PPFA that sold sex and lies to children, Matt is eager to share the truth instead and promote family togetherness.
While the last six years have been a time of spiritual awakening for Matt and his wife, they have not been easy.
“Today, I am making a fraction of my former salary. I don’t care. I rely on God 100%. When someone purchases a prayer card from me, I consider that God is putting food on my table. We can’t grasp the whole picture. Only God sees. When I was still at Planned Parenthood, I was so attached to this world. How am I going to support my family? What about benefits? Those are the things that held me back. I needed to trust God. I still have a car. I still have a home. We lost everything in a devastating fire six years ago and are still rebuilding. There have been a lot of attacks on my family for various reasons.”
While reflecting on Teen Wire and his involvement in promoting promiscuity in teens, Matt marvels at the miracles God can do when our ears are ready to hear, our eyes are ready to see, and our hearts are open to His truth.
“From my time at Planned Parenthood Headquarters and Teen Wire to what I am doing now, it has been a 180-degree turnaround,” he said.
For workers who do not necessarily work in an actual abortion clinic, but are employed by the abortion industry, Matt would encourage people to determine whether they value life.
“If you value life, you have to put your trust in God,” Matt said. “You work for Planned Parenthood, and you have that job security, but abortion pays your bills. But since I have quit, God has not let me down. He won’t let you down either. It is all in His hands.”
Listen to Matt’s story on Abby Johnson’s Politely Rude podcast: https://share.transistor.fm/s/d14e4d64
Shop Matt’s online store: www.tradecatholicart.etsy.com
Visit Matt’s website: https://www.traditiocatholica.com
Learn about Matt’s board game website: https://www.theholyquest.us/
Help get Matt’s board game into production: https://www.givesendgo.com/theholyquest
Shop Matt’s pro-life prayer cards: https://tradecatholicart.etsy.com/?search_query=pro-life