The Catholic Church is not a museum of perfect saints, but a hospital for the wounded seeking healing in divine mercy. The testimony of Esteban and Johanna Montenegro, shared on the Inquebrantables podcast, reveals with raw honesty and without romanticism how the sin of lust, disguised as “freedom” and “economic necessity,” destroys human dignity, marriage, and inner peace — yet also how the grace of Christ restores what seemed irreparable.
The Seductive Lie: Money, “Freedom,” and Self-Deception
Esteban entered the world of adult content driven by Venezuela’s economic crisis and the promise of financial independence. They believed the great cultural lie: that the body is a commodity, that exposing intimacy generates wealth without consequences, and that “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone,” everything is permitted.
Reality proved otherwise. Only a small percentage of creators earn significant profits; most act out of necessity and end up trapped in an escalation cycle: from bikinis to nudity, from nudity to more serious acts. The algorithm constantly demands crossing boundaries. Money vanishes like water, but spiritual emptiness and lack of peace remain.
“Lust is a disordered desire or enjoyment of venereal pleasure,” teaches the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2351). Separating pleasure from its purpose — conjugal union and procreation — turns the other into an object. Pornography, which includes the production and consumption of such content, “desnaturalizes the purpose of the sexual act” and “gravely offends the dignity of those who engage in it” (CCC 2354). There is no true freedom where the slavery of vice reigns.
St. Thomas Aquinas explains that lust violates the order of reason in a matter so necessary for the common good as sexuality. St. Augustine, who fought this same demon, reminds us that sin promises satiety and abundance but delivers only dissatisfaction.
The Progression of Evil and Inner Fracture
The testimony shows how sin advances step by step: first “harmless” photos, then escalation, then ideological liberal justification (“as long as it doesn’t harm the neighbor”). Esteban’s masculine dignity was compromised by allowing and promoting his wife’s exposure.
This progression is not accidental. The devil has all the time in the world to poison little by little. The result: marital problems, depression, unhealed traumas, relapse, and an inner fracture that separates pleasure from fullness. As Johanna rightly noted, many sins are addictions disguised as freedom. Cultural liberalism, like other ideologies, ends up as heresy when it denies the natural order willed by God.
Sacred Scripture warns clearly: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust…” (Col 3:5). And Jesus elevates the commandment: “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28).
The Breaking Point: Hitting Rock Bottom and Christ’s Call
God allowed them to hit rock bottom. Johanna’s depression, the risk of losing their marriage, resurfacing childhood traumas, the impossibility of continuing to lie to themselves. There the seed planted in Esteban’s Catholic childhood appeared, and Johanna’s firmness in her baptized identity despite confusions.
It was not a magical moment, but a battle. They sought help, read the Bible, discerned between Protestant voices and their Catholic roots, returned to prayer, the Rosary, and parish community. They decided to marry in the Church, live premarital chastity (despite years of cohabitation), and receive the sacraments. Today they celebrate one year of full access to the Eucharist.
Conversion does not erase the past, but redeems it. What remains on the internet stands as a cross, but no longer rules their lives. “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). The Church offers the Sacrament of Reconciliation precisely for this: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves; but if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us” (1 Jn 1:8-9).
Chastity: True Freedom and Restored Dignity
Today Esteban and Johanna defend chastity as the integration of sexuality within the person (CCC 2337). It is not repression, but self-mastery that orients desires toward the good. In marriage, conjugal chastity makes the sexual act a total, faithful gift open to life.
Chastity restores the lost essence: the ability to love without using the other. It is counter-cultural in a society that reduces the body to merchandise. As Johanna said, arriving chaste at the ecclesiastical marriage breaks all the world’s false promises.
St. Thomas teaches that virtue does not eliminate passions but orders them. St. Augustine, after his conversion, found in Christ the peace that lust never gave.
Message for Anyone Doubting or Trapped Today
If anyone reading this feels tempted by “adult content” — whether producing or consuming it — let them hear the testimony: it brings no peace, it does not liberate, it destroys. Economic necessity or the desire for “empowerment” are excuses the devil uses to destroy dignity.
The Church does not condemn the person, but the act. It offers boundless mercy. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mk 2:17). Whoever hits rock bottom can find Christ’s hand. Closing accounts, confessing, praying, returning to the sacraments, and rebuilding life in grace is the path.
Conversion is daily spiritual warfare. Let us not glorify sin nor romanticize the past. Let us make reparation and give testimony so that others do not fall.
“Return to me with all your heart,” says the Lord (Jl 2:12). Esteban and Johanna did so. Their story proves it is possible. The Church welcomes them as prodigal children. Christ awaits you too.
Sources
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992/1997). Libreria Editrice Vaticana. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM (Sixth Commandment and chastity); sections on sin and conversion.
- Sacred Bible (Catholic version). Cited verses: Mt 5:27-28; Col 3:5; Rom 5:20; 1 Jn 1:8-9; etc.
- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 153-154 (lust and chastity).
- St. Augustine, Confessions (struggle against lust and conversion).
- Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Pornography and Violence in the Communications Media: A Pastoral Response (1989).
