Welcome and congratulations, Anne Rice!

Dear Anne,

I know it was a tough decision on your part to leave the Catholic Church—one filled with grief and controversy.

I made the same choice in 2000, and let me tell you, it has worked out well for me. It will work out well for you, too.

One thing I have found since leaving is that I've been free to explore truth on its own terms—truth as it lives in my heart, mind, and body, and not truth as it lives in the retelling of successions of celibate men cloistered in a city-state in the middle of Italy, who as a whole, know little of such greatness and power as can be found in women, in sexuality, in creativity, in self-expression, in risk-taking, and rule-breaking. Take these things away from a man's experience, and you don't have much of a man.

Like you, I was disconcerted about the role of the bishops in fighting Proposition 8, as well as the rising tide of neo-conservatism in the Roman Catholic Church. I don't know about you, but I knew the church was pretty much doomed for awhile when Josef Ratzinger ascended the throne of Rome and became Pope Benedict XVI. The furtive and lackluster response to the sexual abuse scandals seemed both the last nail and a seal of Crazy Glue around the lid of the coffin, in which lies the church's moral authority in the modern age.

I know you will miss liturgical and sacramental life, as you indicated on NPR the other day. But now that you are on the other side, you may find that Christ has walked down many roads blocked off by today's Christian Church, and made his home there. Christ was a rule-breaker, an iconoclast, a trouble-maker, and an unreasonably compassionate and passionate lover. His public love and respect for women was a scandal, and is such a scandal today that the church has presented an "impostor Christ" to worship, a watered-down version of the original, who somehow cares more what people do behind closed doors than what happens when they have closed hearts.

Now that you no longer have Benedict to answer to (as if you ever really did), I encourage you to explore some progressive theologians. My favorite is Albert Nolan, who wrote Jesus Before Christianity, a brilliant book that I hope you will read.

I have grown and seen so much, Anne, since I left. I love God and appreciate Christ more than I ever did as a Christian, and as a Catholic. You will too. You probably know this though.

Thank you for being luminous and courageous.