As per usual, the Vatican is incapable of any real self-reflection

I know maybe 10 or 12 kids from my corner of the world who became priests or nuns.. They all had different stories. Several came from uber-religious, huge families. They never seemed to have much in the way of personality and I'm sure made fine if uninspiring fodder for religious life. It was sometimes like they signed up the way other kids sign up for the Army: because they didn't know what else to do.

Others, meanwhile, were great kids: gregarious, friendly, fun and intelligent, people who seriously considered their decisions and truly felt called. They were cream of the crop kids when I knew them, and today, I have no doubt, are examples of the best hope for the church.

I've seen good priests and horrible priests. There were two churches near where I grew up. They were run (for most of my youth) by a pair of brothers who grew up in the area. One, in the larger town, is what's wrong with the church, in many ways. He took the teenagers water skiing during the summer, which was great. But he was also a backward-thinking bigot who ran the town.

The last straw for me — and something that left a permanent mark against the church — was a rant during a CCD (Catholic education) class when I was near the end of high school. I asked about a newspaper article that made claims that a lot of priests in the state had died of AIDS. (I asked a lot of questions and was always fairly skeptical ... they didn't like me much.) I did research on my own and the article was horrible. It came from a major regional paper and ran in our good-sized city paper without a slew of qualifying statements that had made it at least initially tolerable. It was shoddy research and unsubstantiated assumptions throughout. But I asked anyway and it led our dear priest into a 15 minute rant about how AIDS was sent by God to kills the gays, how gays deserve to die and how it's science that all gays eventually become murderers.

His brother, who preached 10 minutes down the road, was still conservative, but much more open minded. He played a much more positive role in the community and was a much better example of what a priest could be.

I don't think it's fair to pile all the problems of the first priest on to the church. At his worst, he's a bad person, not just a bad priest. But, there have to be tons out there like him.

As so many others on there, I'm big-time lapsed. I could well end up in the pew again some day, but not any time soon. I have friends who are like me, and some who are much more conservative, who appreciate the church just as it is and welcome the exodus of the weak.