"Maybe it’s because I’m a convert. I would not be dissuaded from Christ and His Church by any of the stuff that’s gone on. Yeah, the Church is human. The Church is made up of very human people. So yeah, the “scandals” don’t, you know, the sorrow of all sin and loneliness and using each other as objects and all that, of course, is always a source of deep concern, but again, if I’m really concerned about that, how can I conduct my own life? How can I purify my own heart?"

“I run into these “good Catholics” all the time, for example, who would rather die than cast their lot with the rest of humanity and ask for help with their massive psycho-spiritual wounds around family, love, addictions, finances. “We have Christ,” you can hear them thinking. Well, yes, and Christ works through other people. We have a huge fear of appearing vulnerable or weak, of not having all the answers. That is what Christ and the Gospels are for.”

“I have many times sat across from, and told some of my darkest secrets to, gay ex-methheads, convicted felons, functional illiterates, and all sorts of other unpromising folks like myself, to truly great effect. I have become friends with many of these people; they have been deeply loyal and generous friends to me. But I’m not going to kneel before that person. That I want to kneel; that I want, with a humble and contrite heart, to be forgiven, to be made clean, to be born anew; that the Church is built, in a sense, upon that very desire, makes me know that my house is built on solid rock. I continue to fail and fall, but my house is built on solid rock.”