For almost 11 years, Matt Lorens worked behind the scenes at Planned Parenthood’s headquarters in Manhattan, building websites and designing graphics for a murderous group responsible for thousands of abortions annually. 

Notably, he never stepped foot inside an abortion clinic. He never witnessed a woman seeking an abortion. Rather, his daily reality consisted of lines of code, browser compatibility issues, and user experience—until a profound spiritual awakening jolted him out of his complacency and set him on a path from corporate comfort in a pro-abortion setting to a pro-family and pro-life Catholic mission. 

Presently the founder of Traditio Designs, a Catholic enterprise creating sacred art and sacramentals to evangelize through beauty, his journey stands as a poignant testament that even those embedded deep within the abortion industry can experience true conversion—and that God is able to draw radiant light from the darkest places in ways beyond our imagining. 

“I had no idea what Planned Parenthood did."

In 2001, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) hired Lorens for an IT role as a web developer. He had a degree in biology and had initially planned to become a doctor, even working as a medic and nurse in the US Army before college. Yet he discovered that his drive for programming and artistic work ran deeper, and the PPFA position allowed him to pursue the craft he loved while supporting his growing family. 

“I had no idea what exactly Planned Parenthood did or was involved in,” Lorens recounted to Live Action News. “My focus was on starting a family and being able to provide for it while doing the work I loved.”

In those early years of web development, the work was dominated by technical hurdles — ensuring sites functioned across browsers, optimizing user experience, and solving compatibility problems. His responsibility was to construct and maintain working websites, not to scrutinize the messages they carried. 

“I was not concerned with the content of the pages I was programming but with their functionality,” he remarked. “PPFA had editors for the text content and when I received any text that needed to be uploaded to a site, I would simply copy and paste it without paying too much attention to what was written.”

Lorens became a father to two children during his employment by Planned Parenthood, and he obtained three months of fully paid parental leave each time — a staff perk he pointed out was rare in the corporate world then, and even at the moment. 

Insulated from the horrors of abortion 

Based at the corporate headquarters of Planned Parenthood, Lorens remained insulated from the stark realities unfolding inside abortion clinics. 

“I have never seen a single potential mother who was seeking help or decided to abort her baby,” he admitted. “My work always came down to looking at thousands of lines of code on a screen.”

It was several years before he genuinely noticed the material he was helping to advance.

When a graphic designer at Planned Parenthood took maternity leave, he was tasked to fill the role and realized that Planned Parenthood was promoting contraception visuals, condom promotions aimed at teenagers, and the wider messaging of Teen Wire, a site crafted to attract young users with bright animations and playful graphics that presented contraception, masturbation, and LGBTQ ideology as normal, even desirable. 

“Looking back, I have to say that I was not paying enough attention to the abortion portion of PPFA’s mission,” he acknowledged. “And when I realized that abortion was a big part of the services they provided to women, I tried to justify to myself that that is only a part of what they do. They also do things like breast cancer testing and things that are good for women.”

As a Catholic who never supported abortion personally, he originally tried to persuade himself he  was not part of that portion of Planned Parenthood. “I also thought to myself, what difference would it make if I left this job? They would just hire someone else to take care of their websites.”

A conversion that changed everything

Lorens described himself as having been a “Catholic guy” but not an “authentic Catholic.” He attended Mass, but his faith was nominal.

That changed about two years before he left PPFA, when he experienced what he calls a profound conversion. “I saw my soul and heard, clear as day, that if I do not change my life, I will go to Hell,” he conceded. “This experience was very real.”

In the aftermath, he began to overcome a pornography addiction and started praying the daily Rosary — something he had never done before. He wanted to quit his job, but it wasn’t easy. “I needed a catalyst, and eventually it came.”

During this time, Planned Parenthood shifted its headquarters to a new location in Manhattan — directly across the street from the Catholic Church of St. Michael. Lorens began attending daily Mass in a small side chapel during lunch. “The tranquility of this church in the midst of a busy New York corporate life certainly helped me meditate on my life,” he revealed.

The cost of leaving

It took about two years from his first strong inclination to leave Planned Parenthood until he finally did so in 2011. The biggest obstacle for his departure was actually financial security instead of moral doubt.

“We lived in an expensive neighborhood, both making six-figure incomes, and losing that had me very worried,” he disclosed. “I did not know how long it would take me to find a new job, and even if I did, I did not know if it would pay enough to keep our status.”

The catalyst for his resignation came when Planned Parenthood denied his application for leave. “I finally told them that I am quitting. The real reason I quit was abortion, but at the time they did not know that,” Lorens divulged. 

Upon leaving Planned Parenthood, he did not secure new employment immediately. Instead, he commenced freelancing work while continuing his job search and, within a few months, accepted a role that offered higher pay than PPFA—though it came with a lengthier commute. To reclaim some of that lost time, he took up motorcycling. 

“I think I was the only biker praying the Rosary while riding,” he said with a laugh. “Praying the Rosary on a motorcycle while riding at 70 to 80 MPH is not easy. I had to do it with my fingers while holding the steering and navigating between cars. God always protected me.”

From slot machines to sacred art

After leaving Planned Parenthood, Lorens worked for two other companies before moving fully into sacred art. One of those roles was the web production and website maintenance and updates for a company that developed slot machine games.  

“While gambling is not as bad as abortion, I quickly realized that it is just as bad for the soul,” he told Live Action News. “I think I realized that no matter where we go or who we work for, there is almost always something wrong with every company to some degree.”

That clarity led him to start his own business. “I wanted to work for God and help advance His kingdom on earth. I realized that this is not something I can ever achieve working for someone else,” he commented. 

In 2018, Traditio Designs was born. Today, it offers the largest selection of Catholic holy cards in the world — over 1,000 unique designs. 

“Almost all the items I create are handcrafted and designed in my studio. I spend thousands of hours on research, and I take church tradition and the Bible very seriously,” Lorens said. 

A house fire and a new mission

In 2017, a devastating house fire destroyed almost everything Lorens and his family owned. At the time, he was working on an image of St. Uriel, the archangel whose name means “fire of God.” 

He saw the fire as a sign — a call to depend totally on God’s providence.

“We literally lost everything we owned in a matter of two to three hours. I was standing outside on a cold December day, not long before Christmas, watching my life go up in flames,” he recalled. “I do not regret what happened, because I already understand very well that every day we live could be our last.”

After the fire, the family moved into temporary housing while they grappled with insurance and rebuilt their home. Lorens began his business as a Catholic artist, going from a six-figure income to making just $400 in his first month.

“Being on both sides of the fence gives you a certain perspective. You realize that money is not everything, and you accept what God provides without asking any questions. In reality God has never, ever let me down. He always provides; we just need to learn how to trust Him.”

Today, his business provides holy cards, board games, medals, and other items.

His Catholic board games, including The Holy Quest, were inspired by his grandfather, who survived Auschwitz and was there with St. Maximilian Kolbe. “I thought to myself, now that I have created images of hundreds of saints, it would be great to make a Catholic game where children can be those saints in the game.”

“This is a 180-degree shift for me,” he said. “Creating Catholic board games does the exact opposite of what Planned Parenthood was doing with Teen Wire.”

Lorens' work is rooted in traditional Catholic imagery—statues, stained glass, and long-forgotten prayers. He chose to highlight Catholic Tradition because he believes real beauty brings people closer to God.

Lorens and his wife are also full-time caregivers for their son Michael, who lives with cerebral palsy and is unable to walk or hear. Through this daily act of love, his appreciation for the sacred worth of every human life has grown immensely deeper. 

“I am greatly honored that God chose me to be his father and allowed me to care for a saint. Most of us have never met a real saint — I have been living with one for the past 17 years,” Lorens said of his son.

Trusting God

For anyone currently employed at Planned Parenthood or a similar pro-abortion organization who feels a tug on their conscience, Lorens urges them to “Leave right away and put your entire trust in God. It may not be easy at first, but putting your trust in God means you are all in and you never look back.”

Looking back, Lorens sees God’s hand even in his time at Planned Parenthood. “If I never worked there and did not have my conversion, maybe I would not have had the understanding I have today. God works in mysterious ways. Maybe for me it was necessary to be exposed to that industry from the inside in order to do the work I do now.”

His message to pro-life supporters is simple: “Continue to fight the good fight. Do not give up or stop what you’re doing. Continue to reach out to those involved in the abortion industry, point them to stories like mine and assure people that there is an alternative, there is a God.”