As a journalist who lived through the slow, painful slipping away of his Catholic faith as a result of his abuse scandal coverage, I salute Tom Breen with total sincerity. Many people (especially some grudge-holding Catholic readers) expect me to harbor hostility toward Catholicism, but it’s not true. It sounds like Tom Breen’s journey was an authentic one, and though I don’t share his faith entirely, I find it deeply admirable that he could explore the ruins of the Church in Los Angeles and emerge with the hidden treasure of real faith.
The one big lesson I’ve learned from my own traumatic experience losing my Catholic faith is that one should never, ever, ever look to the bishops, the clergy, and the institutional church as the fulfillment of Christianity. To be clear, I believe the office of the bishop and the institutional church are valid and necessary. Even though I am now Orthodox, I still believe that. What I’m saying is that the clergy, especially the bishops, ought to be the best examples of how to be Christian, they are usually just as mediocre as the rest of us — but if you expect them to be that much better, you will be badly disappointed. Robert Bellah says that the “proof” of a religion’s claims is the sort of person they produce. It really is the case that Catholicism, with its institutional culture, produces men like Cardinal Mahony, just as Orthodoxy produces its own share of rotten leaders out of the particulars of its institutional culture, as does Evangelicalism, etc. But Catholicism also produces its own kinds of saints — as does Orthodoxy, as does Evangelicalism. I wish I had not bought into the triumphalist convert enthusiasm when I became a Catholic. It conditioned my way of thinking so profoundly that, without realizing it, I laid the groundwork for my disillusionment, from which I could not recover (as a Catholic).
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