Chateau Lloyd

I know that the anniversaries ending in "5" and "0" are supposed to be the important once, but all of them count for something.

I entered the Catholic Church on Pentecost all those years ago, and I am still a work in progress.  There is a lot going on in the faith, and just when you think you've got it all, you find even more.

I get why my grandparents continued to study religion right up until the end.  There was so much to learn.

To put it another way, I have changed a lot since 2006, and that applies to faith as much as anything else.

Religion did not particularly interest me when I was young.  It was boring, judgmental and anyway God was probably a nice guy and cut us all some slack.

I don't that view was purely a function of youth, by the way.  I think society was objectively more moral than it has become.  Back then, transvestites were mocked and men who entered the women's rest room were subject to arrest, not praise.

Things happen for a reason, and it's increasingly clear that we all needed an awakening of sorts.  We certainly got one.

I will say that the pontificate of the late Francis showed how damaging a bad pope could be, but also the limits to that damage.  Pope Leo is a completely different sort, very much his own man, but his faith is deep, profound and respectful.

He is the type of pope who would have been unremarkable but for Francis, and so we are treasuring him all the more.

I think that is true of a lot of our traditions and prayers.  There is a hunger to get back to basics, and rediscover what has been temporarily misplaced.  I see that Europe is now seeing huge crowds of young people hiking to cathedrals and record numbers of conversions.  That's the hunger we need.