I attended Mass regularly while in college. Later, working as a journalist, it was a big thrill to cover Pope John Paul II’s visit to New York in 1995. My non-Catholic wife and I were married in Holy Spirit Catholic Church in San Antonio.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, I naturally turned to the church for solace. But on the following Sunday, to my surprise, none of the church leaders at Mass acknowledged what had just happened. I was deflated and left feeling empty. Soon after, the sexual abuse scandal erupted.

The repugnant stories of abuse touched my peers. I blamed the clergy. My wife and I moved abroad, and I stopped attending Mass regularly. But as I traveled in the developing world, I was proud to see Catholic missionaries working in the most desperate situations driven by our shared faith. I have still occasionally felt the pull of Sunday Mass.

It was the church’s own teachings that made me stand up on Sunday and question the priest. Catholics are taught that it’s imperative to help others. We are told to protect the innocent. The church has profoundly failed to abide by these basic principles by allowing the sins of sexual abuse to continue.

Aside from my family, two institutions helped form my character: the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts. Both organizations encouraged me to stand up for what is right and to use our strength to aid those in need.

On Father’s Day 2012, with those lessons in mind, I wrote an op-ed and went on television calling on the Boy Scouts to drop their antigay policies. I hated that the Scouts had won a Supreme Court case in 2000 that let them exclude gay scouts and leaders.

Just before my son was old enough to join the Scouts, the head of the organization, Robert Gates, ended the unjust prohibitions against gay members, just as he had done as secretary of defense. I enthusiastically signed up my son and became cub master of our local pack.