Free Losing My Religion by William Lobdell Page A

when the Catholic sex scandal broke from Boston to Hawaii, it would be searingly clear that Father Harris’s case was a bellwether of news to come.
    I was distracted by some much more inspiring stories I was attending to. In my first year of full-time religion, I felt like I had been shot out of a cannon. I wrote 145 stories for the paper. Each article led to something better, more inspiring, more engaging. I saw it as the subtle hand of the Lord at work. Another God thing.
    I was fascinated by people who seemed holy—the Madge Roddas of the world who instantly forgave their rapists and would-be murderers. There were many of them, living on the edges of each major faith. This was nothing new. The roster of saints in Catholic history is filled with people who were thought to be lunatics at the time, and I met a lot of modern equivalents.
    One of the most beloved saints, Francis of Assisi, was initially mocked and scorned by his wealthy family and friends when he changed his life. A hard-drinking son of a prosperous businessman, he was inspired, in part, by a sermon based on this passage in the Gospel of Matthew:
As you go, preach this message: “The kingdom of heaven is near.” Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep.
    — MATTHEW 10:7–20
     
    Francis stripped away his possessions, right down to his shoes. He put on a rough tunic and belted it with a rope. He went barefoot. He began to treat lepers in that simple outfit that would become standard dress for the Franciscans, the order founded on Francis’s principles.
    When I found Christians on the religion beat who radiated holiness, they intrigued and frightened me in equal measure. They were true believers who simply couldn’t live out their faith in a moderate fashion. God required more from them. They had been radicalized by Scripture to follow the words of Jesus. That often meant living among the poor and serving food and providing various services to them. It also could translate into politics, in battles to stop abortion, to allow Christianity in the public square or to save the environment—God’s creation.
    It wasn’t until after that first year, when the ether of unbounded optimism wore off, that I began to see in many of my stories a wide chasm between the lives of the average believer (this group included myself and most pastors I encountered) and those of true believers—people who lived their lives as if the Scriptures were true.
    This gap first struck me during an interview with one of the richest couples in the world, Susan and Henry Samueli. A former UCLA engineering professor, Henry Samueli co-founded Broadcom Corporation in 1991, which went public seven years later. When I talked with the Samuelis in July 2000, their wealth was estimated at $5.1 billion and they had spent the past year giving away $27 million to the University of California, Irvine, $25 million to UCLA, $5 million to Opera Pacific and lesser sums to a variety of nonprofits. I wanted to talk to them about their latest donation, $3 million to help build a permanent home for a Reform synagogue in South Orange County that had operated for years in a series of trailers.
    I arrived at the Samuelis’ oceanfront home perched on a cliff in Corona del Mar with Times photographer Mark Boster. After being questioned by one of the compound’s bodyguards, we were escorted inside the house. I was nervous—it wasn’t every day I interacted with billionaires—but the Samuelis, especially Susan, made us feel at home in the multimillion-dollar mansion with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean and California coast. Henry, a trim man with a dark mustache and full head of short-cropped brown hair, had the demeanor of the engineer that he was: quiet,