{"id":4259,"date":"2010-04-05T13:45:06","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T13:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/why-remain-catholic.html"},"modified":"2010-04-05T13:45:06","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T13:45:06","slug":"why-remain-catholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/why-remain-catholic.html","title":{"rendered":"Why remain Catholic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case anyone missed it, Elizabeth Scalia has some powerful, soul-searing answers: <\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe darkness within my church is real, and it has too often gone unaddressed. The light within my church is also real, and has too often gone unappreciated. A small minority has sinned, gravely, against too many. Another minority has assisted or saved the lives of millions.<\/p>\n

But then, my country is the most generous and compassionate nation on Earth; it is also the only country that has ever deployed nuclear weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n

My government is founded upon a singular appreciation of personal liberty; some of those founders owned slaves.<\/p>\n

My family was known for its neighborliness and its work ethic; its patriarch was a serial child molester.<\/p>\n

The child molester was also a brilliant, generous, talented man — the only person who ever read me a bedtime story. I will love him forever, for that, even when I wake up gasping and afraid.<\/p>\n

I am a woman with very generous instincts, and I try to love everyone, but I am capable of corrosive scorn. Have I been much sinned against? Yes. So have you. Have I sinned against others? Oh, yes. So have you.<\/p>\n

Like a pebble cast into a pond, our every action ripples out toward the edges, reaching farther than we intended, touching what we do not even know, for good and for ill. It all either means nothing, or it means everything.<\/p>\n

As a Catholic, I believe it means everything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest.<\/a> Please. It’s a stunner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case anyone missed it, Elizabeth Scalia has some powerful, soul-searing answers: The darkness within my church is real, and it has too often gone unaddressed. The light within my church is also real, and has too often gone unappreciated. A small minority has sinned, gravely, against too many. Another minority has assisted or saved…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy remain Catholic? - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/04\/why-remain-catholic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why remain Catholic? - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In case anyone missed it, Elizabeth Scalia has some powerful, soul-searing answers: The darkness within my church is real, and it has too often gone unaddressed. The light within my church is also real, and has too often gone unappreciated. A small minority has sinned, gravely, against too many. 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