Catholic Graphic Designer’s Resolution to Leave Planned Parenthood Opens Door to Creating Sacred Art
For much of the time Matt Lorens worked at Planned Parenthood Federation of America as an IT professional, he didn’t question whether it was right for him as a Catholic who opposed abortion to be there.
“Working at the headquarters in New York City,” he told the Register, “I never witnessed anything that happened in a clinic. It was strictly an office environment, and I was just doing my work, designing graphics, programming websites. For a good number of years, I never gave much thought to what this company is doing.”
But when his son, Michael, was born with cerebral palsy, someone asked him why he and his wife hadn’t aborted their baby after learning he would be disabled. “I said, ‘How could you say that? He’s a gift from God,’” Lorens said. “Maybe that was one of the ways God was talking to me because I was working there.”
Lorens eventually began to consider leaving Planned Parenthood but spent a year struggling over how he would support his family if he did.
“I tried to make excuses, like, ‘They don’t just do abortions — they do a lot of other good things, like breast cancer testing,’” he said.
Ultimately, after almost 11 years at Planned Parenthood, he gave up a good salary and a generous benefits package to take a step that led him into a deeper faith life and a career change. Lorens now runs Traditio Designs, a business that seeks to restore people’s faith in God with handmade holy cards, framed pictures, rosaries and other items such as bookmarks and note cards.
“I wanted to evangelize the world through the beauty of Catholic art,” Lorens told the Register. He bases his work on photographs of statues and stained glass, adding prayers, some of which are long forgotten. “I try to put my soul and heart into everything I create. I want it to be beautiful, to give each person a way to connect with Jesus and Mary.”
After leaving the nation’s No. 1 abortion provider, Lorens went on to work for two other companies. In 2018, he started applying his digital design skills to Catholic artwork, focusing on framed images of Mary and the angels that could be hung on a wall. “I never planned to create holy cards or rosaries,” he said. “I never even thought of that.”
What happened next caused him to reconsider what he was doing professionally.
He and his family lost everything in a house fire in 2017 and Lorens cried out to God, “Father, what are you trying to tell me here?” At the time, he had been working on an image of St. Uriel, an archangel who is commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic traditions and whose name means the “fire of God.” He decided it might be a sign he should pursue his Catholic artwork full time.
