Friendship with Jesus Christ is where Christianity begins. To learn from Christ and to be fed by him in holy communion is the primary reason for Catholic worship. If Catholics lose sight of that, the awfulness that has come to light about some of the people of the Church, at all levels of Catholic life, can cause what might seem at first blush a crisis of faith.

Yet much as I share the anger and disgust of my fellow Catholics over what has surfaced these past months, I’d suggest to those imagining themselves in a crisis of faith that they’re experiencing something different: a challenge to understanding what the Church really is. As the Second Vatican Council taught in the first sentence of its most important document, the Church, first and foremost, is about Jesus Christ, the “light of the nations.” Catholics trust Jesus Christ; trust in the institutions of the Church follows from that. And when trust in the Church as an institution is broken—as it has been so many times over two millennia—it’s important to refocus on the basis of Catholic faith, which is trust in Jesus Christ.