Thread by @ThomasHCrown

I've spent a lot of time praying over why the allegations of episcopal sex crimes in the Catholic Church do not drive me to rage or questioning my faith. I have a few answers, which may be condensed as "my approach to my Faith is different than it should be" and "nothing new."

This will take a bit to explain. Even by my standards.

My dad was one of the Silent/Lost/Whatever generation, my mom a Boomer. My dad grew up poor in Cajun country, my mom barely middle class in New Orleans and its suburbs. Church for my Dad was what they did on Sundays and Holy Days, for my Mom it was part of life.

My mom went to Catholic school from 1st grade (they couldn't afford the kindergarten) through graduating high school. My dad went to public schools because like most of the Catholic kids in the area, they couldn't afford Catholic school; that was for the rich Protestants.

I was raised a Suburban Catholic, which meant my experience of Catholicism was much more like my dad's; I only went to Catholic school for a few years, and my experience there was so negative that until recently I'd sworn never to send my kids there.

My relationship with the Church has historically been different than what it should be: I am a Catholic because, inter alia, the Church teaches that faith is the only rational and joyful response to the gift of Grace God has offered Man.

Emphasis on rational.

To study the early history of Christianity is to see not only this but the undeniable necessity of the Church up to the present: In the compilation of the Bible and the Deposit of Faith; in the teachings and translation on that text; in the very structures we take for granted.

Do you see how I phrased that? This is how I argued it in Confirmation class: Not purely as some sort of soul-emotive experience in touching a fraction of God's grace, but rather in a logical building exercise that begins with the first steps and runs from there.

I was 10.

That makes me more disturbed than special.

This is why Donatism, to take the easiest example, has never struck me as a very persuasive heresy (and note that some very intelligent men fell for it back when and even now): It suggests that the ineffable structures created by Christ can be sullied by grubby humans.

It is an explicit argument that the gifts God gives us, by which we most directly know Him, can be sullied by the very vessels he chose quite literally to carry and impart them.

It's an attack on God, not on human imperfection; and it's illogical, which is almost as bad.

Mrs. Z., my fifth grade religion/social studies/other things teacher, who is retired but not yet gone to her eternal reward (she was one of my favorites so I'm pulling for Heaven here), once told me "there are a lot of priests in Heaven, but a lot more saints."

To that end, I realized a few years later, studying the history of the Church is studying the history of sinners groping toward the divine and missing a lot -- but not always, and not in the end.

And boy is this true with bishops and, not least, the Bishop of Rome.

There have been profoundly holy men -- sinners, absolutely, as are we all, but deeply holy -- who have sat in that See. There have been men who were more sinners than saints by far.

Christ picked a dude as His Rock who denied him three times before the cock even got around to crowing.

Sinning is disobedience to the Lord of the Universe, the only possible punishment for which is eternal death. Denying God after breaking bread with Him is worse.

Everyone knows the Borgia Popes and Medici Popes Were Bad (because we're the inheritors of the English Reformation and they were kind of historical illiterates when looking for propaganda -- and if you don't think so, read Spenser).

But the Medicis (and the Borgias to a lesser extent) were really just venal people. Wander into the 9th and 10th centuries and believe you me, brother, it gets weird and ugly.

But in that same See are martyrs and saints, and men who on the one hand lived lives little better than the Borgias and Medicis on the one hand and gave their vital energies to restoring and expanding Christendom on the other.

The strength of Men fails every generation. The power of Christ is eternal and sustains us as a gift that is quite despite us.

But again, look at how I've described all of this, the understanding of which is central to my faith. I'm not talking about the (rare but profound) moments of transcendence I experience when Adoration kicks in, or joy in partaking in the Mass, or any of that.

The weight of history is a solidity; the weight of Tradition an anchor in a turbulent world; but all of these are merely logical progressions that began anew with a bunch of scared dudes and one Mother suddenly bearing tongues of flame.

Christ's Grace, and His Bride, are not subject to human whim and failing. They are ineffable in their magnificence and impervious to the weaknesses of those who carry their truths. Otherwise, they're not gifts of God.

Tell me a bishop has done wrong and I'll say he's a sinner. Tell me a Pope looked the other way when a heresy spread and I'll tell you that a bunch of Pauls revoked Peter Honorius I.

I think in these ways -- I speak here as I speak in real life -- because I have a sort of transactional relationship with Holy Mother Church. I go to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, I wrestle with my cruddy grasp on theological questions, I pass on the Faith because it's logical.

I don't live a life centered around the parish. The building is fifteen minutes down a major highway, my fellow parishioners are theological illiterates even by my standards, the youth religious leaders are antinomian and Pelagian as most modern Catholics are.

My children spend no significant amount of time around priests: our local priests live miles away, Cajuns were discouraged from seminary for generations so there are none in my family and only a few left in my wife's Irisher line, and parish life isn't a thing for us.

Catholic school at any Catholic school near (within 50 miles of) us would cost, with discounts, about $100K per year, so my kids go to public schools. We live a very suburban American Catholic life.

I find what the terrible, wretched men we're discovering anew do -- all too often using the very sacraments to advance their depravities -- horrifying and a rebuke to Pope Francis's thoughts on the death penalty.

That they perpetuate their disordered behavior and indeed reinforce it is, if not a punched ticket to Hell, assuredly a winning lottery draw for that ticket line.

But they are ministers of Grace, not Grace itself. They are competent to teach it, not to corrupt it.

I quite literally cannot see my faith altered because human beings convey it; or else it was never faith in Christ Crucified and Risen at all.

For this reason, I can clinically say, "Well, here are men with collars who have defiled children; they are no different than men without collars who have in at least one critical way: The hangman, Hell, or both, await."

I mention all of this because I see and hear so many talking about how this scandal or that has harmed their faith; and to me, this is like saying that the bad Baked Alaska three tables over is ruining my steak. Same restaurant, but my steak is pretty good.

Just working this through in semi-public. If you've muted, this is your cue that you'll never see to un-mute.