Lauren Jackson

At first, in the middle of the night, in secret.

And because he was too embarrassed to admit he was going down these rabbit holes, he found himself watching religious videos online, alone.

And so I started...

I've spoken to quite a few people who point to Father Schmitz as someone very accessible for them in reexamining the merits of a religious life.

And so he was kind of like my gateway into it.

You have power.

And it was like my dirty secret, right?

Like, my secret.

Yeah.

Finally, he comes to the sense that he wants to reconnect in some way to a faith community.

We didn't market because we were Christian.

I just felt really bad.

Like we hadn't, we're just hanging out, right?

I've been thinking about emailing the diocese and being like, what do I do?

But I always just put it off.

So Nick actually contacts the church and he's talking to a priest and he says, hey, I'm open to coming back, but I have a block.

I'm having a real hard time just getting to the believing in God.

Hmm.

And the block is, I don't believe in God.

And that feels like a pretty significant problem when it comes to living a religious life or living a Catholic life.