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 a 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.”
Victory was launched May 28, and since then it has been
downloaded more than 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.”
