Welcome back to The The Covenant Eyes Podcast Podcast. Karen here we're joined with Theo and we have got a stellar episode for today. We are going to be talking about pornography, impact on the church and the globe, and then also organizations that support fighting back against pornography reach into our faith. And with us today we have a really special guest, Theo. And I know you're eager to introduce him, so I'm going to kick it right over to you. With us, we have Father Allen, father Allen Hoffa. I was trained for the priesthood at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. He holds a bachelor's in philosophy and a master of Divinity. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Allentown on June 6th, 2009. He's served in several different ministries. He is currently the pastor of Holy Guardian Angels Parish and Redding, Pennsylvania and the Diocese of Allentown, and he is also highly involved with the work of Integrity Restored. And so, Father Hoffa, great to have you on. Thank you for joining us, Theo. Karen, thank you so much for having me. Always great to be interconnected with all the great people in our country. And I've been blessed to connect with people around the world, who are part of this fight against the evil of pornography. So, so happy to be with both of you in this. Great to have you on. Maybe just to start, I know there can be long versions of these stories, but maybe just briefly, two parts. Number one, how you discovered your vocation to the priesthood. And then number two, how did you get heavily involved in ministering in this area? About pornography and education? About it? Both. Both of those stories could be a podcast unto themselves, but, for the condensed version. So, growing up, was definitely, faithful to the mass, faithful family, and all of that. And, blessing just got done. Catholic schools week, you know, had the blessing of, Catholic education and one of the things that came with that was a really supportive pastor growing up. And so he was very good at sharing with us about, you know, what, the priesthood, what a priest did. A lot of times, people things think it's a Saturday night and Sunday morning job, and there's so many other things. So he was really good at just really couching within a Catholic context all of the different life vocations that we can be called to. And, there was a call to either the priesthood or to the married life, family life. And so one of the things that had a huge impact on me was Saint John Paul the second, when in the year 2000, when we celebrated the last ordinary jubilee. I was blessed to be able to go over to Rome for World Youth Day. During that that year, 2000. And it had a huge impact in my life. And so when I came back for my senior year in high school, I was really thinking about it and going off to college, Albright College, to play, Division three football. So as a football player, basketball player, three sport athlete in high school, went on to play college football. And it was there that actually through an injury, I had some time to discern more. And the Lord was calling me, to be a priest. So I entered the seminary in, the fall of 2002 and was ordained a priest in, June 2009. And it's some days it feels like it's a long, long time ago. And others day, other days it was just tomorrow. But 15.5 years is gone very, very quickly. So the other side then is how did I get involved in this, in this work? So one of the great things that I've always found is exactly what we're doing today. You know, getting a good collaborating with different ministries, connect to the church. And so there is an or a group call up an apostolate Catholic called Stewardship Mission of Faith. David Abel, is the founder of that. And Elizabeth Towns, so sort of south central, PA and they do a lot with evangelization. And they started to develop, sort of sub ministries, within their, their group. And when I was in high school, work as a high school chaplain and as a college campus minister. So college was Lehigh University in our diocese, and then also Allentown Central Catholic was the high school I was assigned to. I had the guys from the Stewardship of Mission Faith coming in to do evangelization with our students for First Friday devotions. And one of the gentlemen who now, runs live vertical, which is their own apostolate, on their own, Rob Longo, he was at that time, doing the evangelization, and he said, hey, we're starting this, ministry called Integrity Restored. And I said, what's Integrity Restored? He says, basically, we're gearing up to take on the pawn, problem head on. And I had been in high school work for seven years, had had plenty of situations between sexting and, you know, all different other situations of porn being found on the faces and, and different things. And one of the sad ones that really got me in my gut was I had a student who made a choice to take a video of herself performing a sexual act, shared it with, young man who made the typical promise, I'm never going to show it to anyone. And not only was it shared with other people, within texting, but it was also shared on anonymous, an anonymous posting site, and I think that was the one that really got me because I dealt with those situations before. But now that, like one of my kids is a spiritual father, is now being objectified out there on the internet, it really hit me in the gut. And so when Rob came with this opportunity to get involved, it was, it was it was the Holy Spirit at work. It was God's will. And from there, especially under the great wisdom and guidance of my bishop, who at that time was our vicar general? It just everything. You know, I always say God blesses the work. And so God has blessed this work. And it's been an incredible job. Coming up on nine year journey. Which is wild. Think about thank you for sharing your background and the passion that really led you to get involved in this movement. I love that you have you have some topics that you do start speaking engagements on. And one of them is it used to be drama. Now it's trauma, which is a presentation you give to teens and parents. And I love that you have a heart to help parents and families address the pornography epidemic, because that is the front lines. You know, Satan is attacking the next generation, and it's coming at them from every social media platform, in media, in music. And it is so important that we engage, talk to us a little bit about, you know, those talks that you give to parents and the response that you get and some of the advice you might have for some of our parents out there that are listening with teenagers. You know, I've always believed in, especially having worked with young people. I was our diocesan director for youth, the young adult ministry, as well as working in schools and stuff like that. I always believe in that, mantra it takes a village to raise a child, and I think that that's becoming ever more present. I think that there's some pride out there that sometimes parents think that they have to be the only ones who raise their child. And with the ever changing world in which we live, especially with the internet, it's impossible. You know, even just, you know, taking this context of Integrity Restored and covenant is coming together. We each have our own individual niche in this greater overall fight against this evil. And, you know, for instance, when I go out and talk to parents, one of the places I direct them to is Covenant Eyes for the monitoring software, but also to defend young minds because, you know, good pictures, bad pictures is a great thing that the junior and the regular I call it, you know, is a great thing to get the children started at an early age, eight, nine years old, first exposure. We have to make sure that they're prepared when they're even younger to say, if I see something that's wrong, I need to be prepared. I think the other thing, too, that they do, is seeing up on the front lines of all of the things changing with apps and devices and what's on the internet to be. I always go out when I talk to parents and, you know, especially with younger children and parental devices, you know, the today's pacifier is the iPhone and the iPad. You know, the tablet and the smartphone. And so often that's being put in front of them without proper protections. And then what that falls into is, all kinds of problems with clickbait and things that can completely distort. Yesterday, at our school, we had in-service for our teachers, and it was a woman coming in to talk about student mental health. And one of the things that they talked about was the disparity that's happening within the maturation of young children. Is that because of things that they're seeing on, the internet, things like YouTube and stuff like that, they're saying things that you think, you know, 13 going on 30, you know, but then at the same time, their emotional maturity is at the level of a five year old where it should be, but it's not nixing. And there's Criss crossing and there's all kinds of problems. So I think for our younger children, especially where there's that average age of first exposure around eight nine, I talk to parents about, you know, device protections and device responsibility and all of those things. And then when you get into high school, you know, into that junior high, high school, I think that there becomes an even greater importance of we need to, Satan is behind a lot of this. And when Satan does this, he's also using other ancillary things to be able to help promote this, this scourge. And one of the things that he definitely has used over the course of especially the last 24 years, has been the clergy sexual abuse crisis. And he used that to be able to pull the church away from talking about the gift of human sexuality. And so we don't go and step into those realms anymore. Well, guess what? Now we are because we have to and we have beautiful things like dump all the second theology of the body to be able to share with the world, to educate our young, and to let them know that this is what your body was intended for. I was at the National Eucharistic Congress this past summer in Indianapolis, and Bishop Robert Barron, who everybody knows he talked about the the church is often seen as this wagging finger that hate sex and sexuality. Actually, it's the opposite. What the church is actually calling, what God is calling us all to, is the greater form of the greatest form of love, to live it out and within the gift of our sexuality, in the right way were so often things like pornography, objectification, you know, all of that is down here, and it's not being used in its fullest extent. So when you talk about, you know, trauma, you know, so many of these things I find in my work and this is stuff for people who are adults who had traumatic experiences when they were young. We deal with something called betrayal trauma, which is when a many times a wife finds out that her husband is using corn, and she feels that betrayal. And it's traumatizing when we do healing retreats with Hoke's Garden, who's another group that we connect with it Integrity Restored. One of the things we found is that when we try to heal those wounds and that trauma for that woman, it's actually she has to go back. And she has a lot of unresolved trauma from family of origin from childhood. And so we know we think of, you know, children are being dramatic and stuff like that, or children can still be dramatic, but they're also carrying around a lot of traumatic wounds that they've been told by society to keep inside. She not bring to the forefront because it's going to be talked about on your Snapchat, on your TikTok. You know, all of these bad messages that are being sent to our young people. So we're about the constitution of the family. We're about the health and wholeness of human sexuality. And to bring that to the forefront, where parents are able to be courageous for the sake of their children and children are also able to be courageous for the sake of themselves and one another. And if something bad has happened to speak out, but also to rise to that greater level of who they're called to be and who they're capable of being. It's thank you so much for, sharing about some of your work with the parents. You know, another, area that you, give it talks in, and, you help your brother priests, you know, as you know, and, hopefully as the listeners know, part of my work is promoting our Safe Haven Sunday program, in which I try to get dioceses and parishes to at least set aside one Sunday a year to incorporate this issue of pornography into the homily. And I'm super grateful to be working Father Hoffa with your diocese. This this coming one's on this, obviously, this is coming up in the confessional. So no priests can avoid addressing this in some form in his ministry. However, for as many people as we find that are excited to participate, we also find that there are just there are every. Sue might be a little, maybe timid about addressing this and correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that there are definitely some people who are afraid to preach publicly about this, speak about this. Or maybe they even feel like they don't know how to address it adequately in the confessional. For any of these things, how do you help your brother priests to grow in this area? And when and how do you help those who might be, you know, afraid to take this on more actively in such a way as you are? Yeah. So one of the I would say it's basically two areas. One is a lack of confidence, and the other one is a lack of, to talk proper tools to be able to address this. So when it comes to confidence, it goes back to that thing I talked about where Satan's, you know, trying to keep our priests, you know, quiet about the realities of God's plan for human sexuality. And so, again, that has to be appropriate. And we have to be sensible and prudent. But also at the same time, it has to be talk it up. I've been a priest for for 15.5 years, and at least twice a year I bring up the topic of pornography within the context of the Sunday homily. Never once, never once, has a parishioner come up to me and said, I can't believe that you talked about that. How could you talk about that subject? No one's ever said that. But again, prudence, temperance, making sure that it's couched in a proper way because you have a mixed crowd in there. You know, I may mention pornography once at the beginning of my homily and then refer to it as, you know, inappropriate pictures or videos, because, again, you have young ears there. You hear something more than once, they're going to repeat parish you to have the ability while they should talk to their children about it, it's also their responsibility to choose when they do that. When we give the encouragement for the when and the where and all that kind of stuff. But I think it's important for a priest to have the confidence that, yes, this needs to be addressed, and especially if you're a priest in confession, you hear this coming in all the time. If it's not the most confessed sin, it's probably in the top three. And so when Integrity Restored was the first, was first form, one of the things that we looked at was we're not only going to take what the beauty of the church's teachings are, but we're also going to look at the science, the neurobiology, the psychology, and we're going to bring that in and fuze everything together, because one they complement one another. And two, that is the fourth, you know, pornography addiction, the its use. This isn't something that can just be prayed away. And I know people oftentimes find that weird coming from a priest. But it's true. We can't just pray the problem away. That's a part of it. Prayer life. You know, staying close to the Lord, understanding his plan. All of that is very, very important. But the other side of it is, is that you need to have the actual tools. And so when we were formed, what we wanted to do was we wanted to give priests the tools through a three and a half day, four day intensive, where they were trained on the neuroscience, on the psychology, on the reality of the spiritual life, how the sacraments can help, and all of these things. We wanted to give them that, to be able to help them in their ministry. And what we found especially, leading up to Covid and post-Covid, was that even though we were couching this within enough days, that a priest would have to miss weaknesses and stuff like that, it was still getting too hard for them to find the time. So actually, back in 2003, Doctor Peter Kleponis who is our primary clinician, our executive director, Jim O'Day, and myself, we put our hand to the plow and we made for three Pillars to Purity, which is an online priest training program. And, that how we're so proud of it. Because it came out so in such an amazing way. But it's also there to be able to help our priests in their own time. And we have in dioceses that are signing on to, get their, if any of their priest want the program, they'll pay for it for the priest that they don't have to pay for it out of their pocket. In my diocese, our bishop believes in so much that he just went out and got, licenses for all of our priests. And so in this year, hope, in the Jubilee year, they're going to bring hope to their ministry, to people who are struggling with pornography by being praying for three pillars to purity. And also, one of the things that I do, I'm actually going to be going to Cleveland, Ohio, to be able to do a, a clergy convocation for their priest, clergy training. So I go around and do that, and our next goal is to sort of expand that, reach the outside of the priest to religious to, you know, pastoral counselors, to those who are working in the pastoral fields, to be able to bring those same tools to them because everyone's affected by this. And I think a lot of times people say, oh, no, not me. Yes, you either directly or indirectly, everyone is affected by this issue of pornography. So I think when it starts with the priests, you know, making them better confessors, making them better pastoral counselors, knowing what that brick line is, that where they've reached their limit. And now they need to encourage a person to get to, you know, the clinician to be able to help them. All of that is within the context of what we do, in the portion of our ministry to serve priests and to be able to help them, in, in their work. That is amazing. And I love the fact that you guys are investing into training leaders, because we hear that frequently that, you know, well, our churches and talking about this and, you know, I would I don't understand why. And really, at the end of the day, it's because they often lack the tools like you mentioned and the resources to really do it effectively, because no one wants to get up there and talk to their congregation about this really hard topic without being equipped with resources to help the people you know as they go through this. So I love that you guys provide that, and I think it is so needed and I'm grateful for that. I want to pivot just a little bit, because you actually were featured in this international video series that was really targeting the evils of pornography, and it was I, I haven't gone through the entire series, but we've, gone through the first session and this was really profound. And now we just want to talk to our listeners a little bit about what this is and how you got tapped into it, because I, I think we often forget that this problem is not just in the United States. This is a global epidemic. And, you know, of course, the ties to the trafficking industry and everything else, it is a great evil that must be rooted out. So talk to us a little bit about this series and the people you worked with to create it. Karen, you're exactly right. Because, you know, pornography worldwide is a $100 billion per year industry. It's massive. And, you know, that's why we need to be so attentive to it. So, you know, here in the States, we have our governmental set up, and not every, country has that. So when we think of whether we agree or disagree, you know, with the, the policies and stuff like that, we have, an or a secret or a group like Health and Human Services, the Department of Health and Human Services. Other countries don't have things like that, even in developed countries. So what happened was, back in the beginning of 2023, I was contacted by a woman, named Patricia Keane over in Ireland. Art. And she, runs the beach field clinic. And she also had a program on Ave Maria, Radio Ireland, and it was a health matters and so on there. You know, one of the things that she was bringing to everyone's attention is that the school system over in Ireland was going to start using pornography to teach children how to teach children to use pornography responsibly as a means to educate them about their human sexuality. And again, anybody who has a right mind would say, that's ridiculous. First of all, and you're going to be causing more problems instead of helping the problem. And so the first thing that Patricia did was she had a number of people, the other priest who's on a lot of the episodes with me, Father Chris Hayden, is, priest over in Ireland, and he wrote a book on that was really getting into the beauty of human sexuality and God's plan for human sexuality. And, Kielty Oberlin, was a is a clinician. She's, American by origin and now, you know, works over in Ireland. And there were a number of others that we brought into the into the group. And she started to have these conversations. So there was a radio conference that was done in May of 2023. And the response came back so much that we need to do more about this that I flew over in the beginning of November 2023 and we, through Shalom World, recorded this 12 part series called The Porn Disaster. And, it was it was phenomenal. Like, you have those moments, you know, where you see, how did I how did I get here? And you're just in all of God's goodness. But also, we were really proud of what we were able to bring together because it helped so many people. And it's going to be something that God, because of the blessings of the internet, is going to be there for people to be able to access. And it was really good in how the 12 parts were broken down, you know, for adults, for children, you know, for various different aspects of this. And they're nice little groupings. You know, 20 to 24 minutes, give or take, to be able to get that good pop of information and then to be able to use that. And there's so many different ways in which it could be utilized. You know, a church could do a 12 week series and have discussion. They could get two videos within the session and have some Q&A, all that kind of stuff. We're able to, you know, because of technology, I'm able to zoom in. I've had a couple parishes who have contacted me and said, hey, would you mind zooming in after we watch this video and have a little commentary? Absolutely. You know, so there's all different kinds of things, but, the point disaster was Shallow World. And all at the start of Patricia Keane having the courage over in Ireland to say this is a problem and we need to do something about it. And, and boy, did we. I think that's amazing. And, you know, in the video series you guys talk about the the reason that pornography is, you know, kind of the new drug of choice for people and you call it the five A's because it's accessible, it's accepted, it's aggressive, it's affordable, and it's anonymous. And that just spells disaster. So I would strongly encourage our listeners to check out this series. And I love the fact that there is a way that you can incorporate it into your churches. Like you said, you could bring it in, you could watch it as a group, have a discussion. You're willing to zoom in and have discussion. I mean, there's no excuse not to get this, in front of people. And then in addition to Integrity Restored in The Covenant Eyes Podcast, there are so many amazing programs and resources now. And people willing to help make this easier to talk about in the church. So I just love it. I just want to add that makes a lot of really good video content. So I'm glad that they took this on. And they're a good resource in a lot of different areas. They have a lot of great videos on their YouTube channel. And like I said, hopefully we can include maybe a link to the first session video in the show notes, to direct to our listeners. Yes. Patricia is actually working on because of her work at the beach, and she's doing a whole thing on suicide now, which also, I know is a concern for, you know, so many people, especially with youth and teen, young adult suicide. And so, you know, they're really willing to go out there and hit the hot topics and bring to light, you know, both the truth of our faith and also the help that's available for those who are struggling. That is a really good news that their advice is doing that. Yeah. Awesome. I would I do want to make sure we cover one other thing, because your Diocese of Allentown is doing something so important and I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard of it even going on in any other dioceses, as it should be going on. And all the diocese is. But you have this, the Lumen Christi Commission, and it deals with this issue of pornography almost or entirely exclusively. First of all, if anything, I thought it was inaccurate. Correct me, but tell us more how that came about and what it is the commission does. Yeah. So let me just take you through a little piece of the timeline. So back in spring of 2016, I get this offer to get involved with, Integrity Restored. And, you know, we the story, it's sort of just sat there and then, the people from Stewardship of Mission of Faith were at our clergy convocation that following October. And what happened was, the guy came up to me, Rob, and he said, you know, who do we need to talk to? And I said, let's talk to our vicar general, Monsignor Alfred Xuereb. And so we had a great talk, and we set up a conference call for, a February, of 2017. Well, what happened in the meantime was in December of 2016 or 2016. Our bishop at that time, Bishop, John Barres who is now the bishop of Rockville Center, got his appointments, Rockville Center. So that happened the beginning of December. And then at the end of January, he was installed. We came back the College of Consultas, elected Monsignor Xuereb as our diocesan administrator. And then the next day is when we have this conference call with Jim O’Day at Integrity Restored. And he says, let's get our priest trained because that was one of the big pieces, was the clergy intensive. So we were going to try and do something in April. We didn't get it done until October, which was fine. Got to take the time. We get our priest trained in October of 2017. We come back and then at that point, Bishop Xuereb says, what do we need to do? He was made bishop in July. He says, what do we need to do with this? And the response came back from all of the priests there. I think 11 of us on the first clergy intensive, we said we need to train more priests, but we also need to make sure that we're using this across the diocese. And after the bishop and I spoke over the course of the next year, we developed that there needs to be a commission. It needs to be, it needs and we listen to the people we said we're going to do this thing. We're going to bring people together. And, you know, the faithful said, do it right and make sure it's comprehensive. And so we brought people in from our sleep environment. We brought people in from our evangelization office. We brought priests, deacons, religious, we brought people from education, religious education every facet of our diocese is covered within this commission. We brought in clinicians. Everybody's there. And so we put our hand to the plow starting in the fall of 2018. And have been working ever since to do intentional programing in our diocese regarding the issue of pornography. And so that's our sole purpose. So like, for instance, you know, we were the ones who brought to the Bishop's attention about, Safe Haven Sunday through Covenant Eyes. And we're going to be doing year one this coming, the beginning of lent, as Theo had said. But then after that, we also, in this year of Hope in the fall, look to do a series on, fight the new drugs documentary, brain, Heart World. So we're going to be doing that, and then little things like get down into parishes and schools, we're going to be going to a number of our Catholic high schools to speak on this, this spring, we help parishes, to be able to have resources when it comes to this issue. We have a website set up, it’s www.ADLumenChristi.org. And there's a lot of resources for people to be able to go to there. We've done a lot with saint intercession. We have, our 16 saints that we direct people to, to be able to use as intercessors for this, this, this challenge, very, hopeful and happy about the canonization of now blessed soon to be Saint Carlo Acutis. We call him the intercessor against, internet pornography. But there's so many other great saints out there to help in this battle. So that's sort of basically been our timeline. But yes, our bishop believes in this so much in our diocese that he, devoted we only have or commissions, in our diocese. And the Lumen Christi Commission is one of them. And so he believes in it so much because as a bishop, as a priest, he knows the harm that's coming to our people. He knows how many problems could have been prevented if pornography was more controlled and or and or eradicated from society. You know, we do so much in our world. And that's one of the big things I talk about when I go out to groups is making the connections. You know, we we live in a world and people have different political ideologies. But I think one of the things that people sort of have come to an agreement on is one of the the issues with our borders that's happening is human trafficking, sex trafficking, and one of the people say, you know, I when I talk to the high school students, you know, they're up on the big topics. They like to get loud about things. They said, who here wants to stop human trafficking? And they all raise their hands. And you know who wants to do something about it? They all raise their hands. And I said, who wants to shut down the porn industry? And they'd all clam up. And I said, well, guess what? Two thirds of the human trafficking, sex trafficking demand is because of the porn industry. So you shut down the demand and guess what? There's no need for the supply because, you know, all of these people are being, you know, sold into some type of sexual slavery, two individual persons, they're being sold into the porn industry. And so making those connections is really, really important. And, you know, we think about all of the destruction that's happening, to marriages. We talk about divorce rates and stuff like that. You know, who wants marriages to stay together? I do. Who wants them to be focused on the right things I do? Who wants to stop the porn industry clam up? Well, guess what? If we stop the porn industry, we're going to stop a big portion of the lie that is being sold to these couples that you know what it's all about the physical when it comes to marriage. And, you know, you need porn, to be able to help you in your marriage or, you know, that there's is over the sexual oversexualized culture in which we live in just perpetuates that. And the list goes on and on and on. You know, it's so destructive. What this stuff does. And the great thing is, you know, all of our organizations coming together and being vocal, this is what's going to continue to work. And let's face it, as you said, there are some dioceses, some bishops, some priests who don't want to touch this with the ten foot pole. And the only thing that I do is I don't get I don't get depressed about that. I don't get down about it. I pray about it. I pray for their courage. I pray for their perseverance. But all I know is that this is what we've been called to. And. And you as well, you and Karen and and everybody over at Covenant Eyes. And we just need to continue to do our part, to get the word out there and to continue to educate people. Because one step at a time, one little chip at a time, we will continue to fight this evil and save people from the great harm that it causes. I applaud your efforts over there and your bishop to address this issue and the creation of that organization, the council that you have, I just can't believe the things that you guys are doing. That is amazing. And it should be a great model for those out there that are also thinking like, how do I get started? I would imagine you're pretty accessible. So if there are priests out there or people in their diocese that wants to just figure out, how do I get this going, are you accessible to them so that they can model something in their own, diocese or even at their local church level? Absolutely. So, you know, I am one of the one of the persons, the speakers available through, Integrity Restored. And one of the things that I offer is the ability to come in and consult and create a diocesan plan, with the bishop and those who advise him, that's going to fit their diocese. It's not, you know, cookie cutter, we take, you know, best practices, from all around, you know, one of the best practices that I tell people, is, you know, to use Covenant Eyes, not not only in, promoting the monitoring software or the accountability software, but also to promote things like Safe Haven Sunday. And the biggest thing with that is to not use it as a check the box. I think that there are a lot of people who say, oh yeah, we did Safe Haven Sunday. Well, for how many years? Well just one. Well, you know, it is a four year program that's supposed to be cyclical. It builds on itself. No, I didn't know that. But we did enough. We did Safe Haven Sunday and that's why we don't need to talk to Integrity Restored or that's why we don't need to promote Defend Young Minds, or we don't need Fight The New Drug, or we don't need this, that, or the other thing in. Again, it's it's not being comprehensive. I think that's the big thing is when you are comprehensive about this issue, then it really has a fighting chance. And so I think, you know, we need to just continue to be vocal about sharing the tools that are out there, the weapons for the war. And we want souls to get to heaven. And I think that you know, in 2024, in the 21st century, this is one of the growing things. And, you know, the good thing is, is that the more and more we go with the, with the psychiatric and mental health community, we're getting more and more studies. But I always liken it to, you know, how people lament that things like the Surgeon General warning, only came out so many. How many years after people got lung cancer and died from cigarettes Well, here's the thing. Are we going to continue to wait for, you know, many, many years from now for the longitudinal study to show the damage that pornography does to the brain? They're putting out brain scans now, and it's ugly. It's ugly. What happens to the brain because of heavy porn addiction. And so do we want that. We want to wait and lose a ton of people, or do we want to be proactive with what is already being shown? Like you said, Karen about the five A's and why this is the drug of choice and all of the destructive things that are happening out there in the world because of it. You know, you think of the next weight, you know, you think of the, the, the, the subscriptions to things like OnlyFans that's growing. That is that's all it has. It has a purpose and it's not good. You think of all of the things that are happening with AI. AI is going to be the next big challenge that we have, and I'm sure you guys are facing it, you know, over there with how you know, the monitoring and accountability software can pick up the AI, pieces because that that's can be it. We one of the things that, you know, from our, our Catholic tradition, that we talk about is, you know, the sins that are, against the gift of human sexuality. And when it comes to pornography, a lot of times, things like masturbation are connected with that. And all of this stuff turns us inward as human beings were meant for relationship, were meant for the exchange of love. You can't do that if you're focused in on yourself and you hear about these people, you know, they never leave their home. They you know, some of it was caused by the pandemic. Some of it was just because of other things that happened that they don't leave their home. Why? Because everything can be bought to them. Someone can go and buy their groceries. They can have all of their clothing shipped in. They can have their food shipped in. They can get everything DoorDash. And now they don't even have to worry about solving or meeting their sexual needs because things like AI are taking, you know, pornography to the next level because you can basically have something learn you and create the perfect person that will never get in a fight with you, that will never disagree with you, and that you know, will give you everything that you think you need in a sexual relationship. And so it's extremely, extremely dangerous. And that's why we're so courageous, in doing the work and getting the good news out there. Well, praise God for your work and, for the work of Integrity Restored as well. I'm just grateful that to have you in the battle with us. Because this is going to take all hands on deck. This is a big problem in the blast radius. Cannot be denied. So with that, we're going to bring today's episode to a close. But we do want to make sure that people can get in contact with you and your work and also Integrity Restored. So where can they go to learn more and stay connected. For Integrity Restored our comm and we have a lot of great resources on our website. And then also for the Lumen Christi Commission, it's ADLumenChristi.org. And we have an email address there, ADLumenChristi@AllentownDioceses.org. And my, email, at Integrity Restored is FrHoffa@IntegrityRestored.com. So, those are the best ways to reach out. And I'm going to be I'm going to do one that's probably going to maybe knock your socks off. I don't know if anybody's ever done this before, but, the other thing that I always give out when I'm out there is, listen, one of the things with the sayings is secrets lose their power when they're no longer secrets. And one of the biggest things that people are out there doing is they're living under the weight of shame because pornography is their secret. Shame is never of the Lord. Shame is a tool of the evil one. So my cell phone that is confidential, that gets directly to me is (610) 207-3441. I can tell you this much. I've been a priest again for 15.5 years. There are thousands of people who have my cell phone number. Never once has it been misused. However, it has been used for the right reasons on so many occasions. So I am happy to give out that number to and for people to use it who are in need. Maybe you're a person who needs it for yourself. Maybe you're a person who needs to talk because someone that you love or care about is struggling with a problem with pornography, and you need some guidance. I, I believe in that. My life is for the church. It's laid down for the life of the people of God, and I'm happy to serve in any way I can. So, I don't think that you can say there's no way for me to get in touch with this guy. Give a call, give us an email, give a text, and I will be happy to help. That is incredible. And it's not too often, Theo, that someone will actually give out their phone number. But I love that. I love that you are accessible and that you are just serving the Lord in this way. Thank you so much for joining us today, and to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode. Be sure to like it. Subscribe to our channel and share the word. Let's get the message out about what your church can do to help fight back against pornography. Until next time, God bless. Take care. We'll see you again soon.