Chris Ederer, a parishioner of St. Paul in Ham Lake, said pornography entered his life after a tumultuous childhood and traumatic divorce between his parents in which his father left home. When he was in high school, he hung out with his friends in a hotel’s game room. In the hallway outside the game room was a vending machine that sold pornography.
Ederer told “Practicing Catholic” host Patrick Conley on the program that will air at 9 p.m. Nov. 29 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM, “On a 15-year-old brain that’s been impacted by trauma, that’s where pornography entered my life, as a way of medicating pain. … What made it doable for me was the fact that nobody was around. They didn’t have cameras (in) lobbies at that time. What ended up happening was every month for all of my high school, for four years, every month, I’d go sneak into that place … I’d make sure nobody was around. Once everything was empty,” he would purchase a magazine, place it under his shirt and leave.
Ederer said his friends didn’t know that he had a massive collection of pornographic magazines in his bedroom. Ederer described discovering internet porn in the 1990s as a firestorm. During this time, he also got married and has been married for the past 34 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ederer’s wife told him she couldn’t deal with his addiction anymore.
“It was now time to do something really extreme to change my life,” Ederer said. “It wasn’t about saving my marriage as much as it was about saving me. Whatever decisions my wife was making, I couldn’t blame her for any decision she would make.”
Ederer’s close friend, the late Father Jeff Huard, gave Ederer a book called “Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction” in the early 2000s.
“Father Jeff had been a friend of mine since before he became a priest,” Ederer said. “He was kind of my, ‘The house is burning down, go to Father Jeff. He’s got a hose.’”
Ederer said he went to a counseling center called Faithful and True in April of 2020 where he spent four years in intensive counseling and group therapy focused on finding his identity.
“Father Jeff was instrumental, the catechism (Catechism of the Catholic Church) on virtues was absolutely instrumental, so there were elements of the Church that really helped me to figure out who is Chris Ederer,” Ederer said. “In doing that, there was freedom. There’s the road to freedom because I didn’t want to die being that man that was betraying my wife, my family, using porn to do whatever. … There’s so much shame around it. … In my case, counseling was the answer.”
To hear Ederer walk through his journey with porn addiction, tune into “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. Nov. 30 and 2 p.m. Dec. 1.
The program also includes a discussion with Archbishop Bernard Hebda on how God invites us into deeper trust during the Advent season. Also, Kari Bednarczyk, the founder of GRACE Co., talks about her company’s volunteer services to support families in need.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the program can also be heard after it has aired at archspm.org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
