David:  WHY BE CATHOLIC?

I am really not sure why I keep "checking out" or even "returning" to the Catholic Church, when it condemns me as a disordered sinner.  I am gay, although I do admit I have not been "active" in a long time (no bars in this town!).

I have tried the Episcopal church, but something just seems to be missing from them: maybe it's that of the over 700 members of the local church, barely a 100 show up on Sundays; maybe it's that of the congregation, the majority seem to be well over 60 years old: and maybe it's that it is debatable if they really want us, either (check some Anglican websites).

I was raised Catholic, and as it has been written: "You can take the boy out of the Church, but not the Church out of the Boy".  But, although I can believe most of what the Church teaches and does, (and actually some of its social, political and economic teachings are very advanced) I run into a wall when it comes to sexuality.  Should I just attend, and reserve my belief?  Would that be hypocritical? 

Christianity is actually about Christ, and not the Church, although the Catholics do have a very detailed theology of the church that is far beyond what any other Christian body teaches, their teaching usually being something on the order that the Church is the community of the Believers.

Anyway, I guess I have been rambling, but I seem to keep finding myself back in a Catholic church on Sundays, although I do not believe a lot of what they teach concerning sexuality.  Of course, I probably can't reveal my feelings in this regard to other parishioners, either.

An additional point on the taboo subject: priestly sex with minors:  seems to me that the bishops and priests did not consider this a very serious sin, considering how little they did about it.  And a politically incorrect question about it: I wonder if any of it took place within the framework of a relationship between priest and boy?

Well there it is: in the end, I can't really answer why I am still Catholic. 

---David.