FAITH: I wrote too much below. But I did want to explain one other thing: Why my faith in the Church has not been shaken by these scandals. I feel a little strange that it hasn’t, at least not for very long. Random personal weirdnesses, crushes, stress, etc. have shaken my faith much more than what is obviously a crisis in the Church in the USA. So I don’t know if this makes me a better witness or a lousier one. But my experience is all I’ve got, so I present it in hopes that it may help some people.

And as for the stuff below: If you’re sick of this discussion, by all means, skip it. It’s several posts long because I ran off at the mouth, sorry. Now, why my faith has remained pretty steady:

1) I didn’t really know anything about the Catholic hierarchy when I became Catholic–all I “knew” was that they’d done the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition and whatnot–so I had low expectations. My reasons for becoming Catholic (as vs. Protestant–or, when I learned a bit more about it, Orthodox) were that it made the most sense, and the witness of the Catholics I knew personally. (Including Zorak and her mate.) Why not Protestantism? Partly it was standard questions like, Who actually maintained a connection to the Apostles and the early Christians?, Where’s the Bible from?, and Does it make the most sense to interpret Christ as promising a lasting and visible Church? But also, Catholicism was more sensual, more “incarnational,” more scholarly, and simultaneously more rational and more mystical than any variety of Protestantism I knew about then or since. But none of that had anything to do, really, with the hierarchy; and especially not with their personal holiness.

2) I find a lot of hope in history, the ways that the Holy Spirit has corrected and sustained the Church when things looked completely hopeless. Also the saints, especially the ones who were rejected or harassed by the hierarchy (which is a lot of them!).

3) Amy Welborn and her companions in Catholic blogging provided me with a model of honesty, righteous anger, and the kind of charity that doesn’t slide into falsehood and cruelty. Credit where it’s due and all that.

4) This is immensely important: I know and hang out with faithful Catholics a lot. People in crisis need community. They need it especially when the crisis is taking place in the Church, which is a mystical community. If you’re feeling confused or troubled, talk with priests who are up-front and who understand why you’re having difficulty trusting the Church. Face to face, “real time,” personal contact with other Catholics who make no excuses and who embrace the Church is one of the best sources of hope.

I think CS Lewis says somewhere, “The Devil tempts most at the steps of the altar.” I think I was prepared to believe that even before this dramatic and terrible confirmation of it. When one serves the Church in a visible and obvious way, it is so easy to think that serving oneself is serving the Church; so easy to begin to confuse one’s own desires and ego with God’s will. And similarly, I think some lay Catholics also confuse serving the Church with serving particular bishops or priests. (Note: I am not saying that all lay Catholics who have, say, disagreed with Rod Dreher of thinking this! That would be really lousy of me.)

I think also of Lucifer, who (I think–?) initially ranked high among the angels. Rank doesn’t seem to imply virtue in any variety of Christianity.

I’ll try to post more on keeping the faith as I think about it more. But for now, that’s what has been sustaining me. That, and prayer, especially prayer to the saints.