If I were do it over again, I likely would have left Catholic Church and attempted some other spiritual discipline.
It’s not the sex abuse scandal or the numerous sins of the past. I believe in repentance and forgiveness. It’s the fact that the “orthodox” laity, the New Evangelists don’t seem interested in repentance, forgiveness, charity, detachment, and other virtues that are supposed to be its hallmark. Whole cadre’s of “orthodox” faithful whitewash the past while demonizing other religions, it’s crocodile tears for the unborn while defending gross injustices, double standards while proclaiming the importance of “moral absolutes”, and the Catholic media that is little more than a political propaganda outlet.
The hagiography they give to Antonin Scalia is disgusting given the fact that he always decided with the strong over the weak, and the weak paid the price. Talk about the meek inheriting the earth. I digress, but he stands out, in my mind, as one of the worst SCOTUS Justices we have ever had.
The more I try to reason out these double standards, the more I become depressed and a bad example as a human being. There are reasons based on, well, reason that I stay Catholic, along with hedging my bets in Pascal’s wager. However, for someone who is looking for moral absolutes, certainty and some sort of compass, I don’t think I would recommend Christianity, unless it was in a place where it really was practiced in the way Pope Francis and people who really lived out the teachings read in the Gospels themselves. This country is not one of them.