So I’m often told the same story: “I used to be proud and doubt like you, but now I know the Church is true.”

Here’s my response:

There was a period in my life when I was terrified of nuance and realizing that the world is complicated and lacking simple answers. I eventually got over this, in the same way that you seem to have gotten over your pride (obviously, I haven’t totally escaped this as you haven’t totally escaped pride, but we both seem to have made progress in these problems we’ve identified as deeply difficult). In the same way you see your past problems and present salvation as my path, I could say the same for you. In the same way that you worry I am motivated by pride, I worry you are motivated by a desire to find clear answers by subsuming yourself in an institution that gives them. I think it was Augustine who said that moderation was harder than abstinence. I still find this to be true, and I am often tempted by One Answer but then I realize that God did not make the world that simple.  And I wholly reject that believing in this nuance implies a rejection of the Church writ large. That kind of simplification is precisely the problem. I also recognize that you haven’t stopped thinking. In fact, you spend a whole lot of time thinking about how to reconcile these Catholic ideas with empirical evidence and the doubts you still hold. However, you no longer let yourself question certain things that I think still ought to be questioned.

And by the way, I certainly am too proud. That’s true. But that doesn’t make me wrong. The rightness of my argument and my pride (or tone in producing the argument) are related but ultimately separate.