An Open Letter To Steve Skojec

*Note, I do not know Steve in real life, and have only corresponded with him by email as it related to my articles that were published by him when he ran One Peter Five. This is not a hit-piece but a letter of fraternal concern that I don't expect him to ever receive or respond to. It's mostly for my benefit to get it off my chest and for the benefit of the readers here.

Dear Steve,

Although I don't have a Twitter account, you are the only figure I follow on the platform. I find a good number of the things you post to be interesting, eclectic, and off the beaten path of usual commentary. I also appreciate that you have a skeptic's mind (though I imagine this may be a bit of a cross as well) and challenge existing narratives both inside and outside the Church by looking at things from other angles. I also check in on your Substack to get a different perspective on Church matters outside the tribal narrative.

There are times I want to comment and I have even entertained the idea of opening up a Twitter account to do so. But seeing the nature of the platform, and what it has done to a number of otherwise good and healthy, balanced people, I decided it wasn't worth the cost to one's psyche. My blog is really my only medium of communication these days. Which is why I'm writing here.

We are roughly around the same age, have probably been writing for the same amount of time, and came into the Church from different entrances and dealt with our own forms of trauma over the years. I admired your undertaking of starting 1P5, though I think I expressed to you by email a few years ago that it may be your personal undoing. I don't fault you for that--I wouldn't have wanted your job. I tried to contribute as I could with a handful of articles, because even if you weren't completely on board with the preservation of Catholic tradition near the end of your tenure, many people who read 1P5 were. It was an exciting time, but as often happens, there is always that threat of disillusionment in the end.

Truth be told, I always wanted to have a bourbon with you (I think I tried to put it out there to get together when I was in Phoenix last year, but you never responded), but you seemed to have a wall up where you were more comfortable behind a screen and kept a short list of IRL interactions. I don't fault you for that. I imagine you may be dealing with the fallout from your announcements in "Crippled Religion"  of distancing yourself from the Church and may be regarded in some circles as a social pariah. I'm not here to judge you. Part of me even saw this coming and wish I could have warned you in some way more than I did. Like a car crash happening in slow motion that you're powerless to stop.

I see you as a very intelligent, inquisitive, and self-reflective person. From my limited vantage point on Twitter and Facebook (when I was on it), there seems to be a wound somewhere deep that reflectively shoots down anyone trying to reach out and help and/or encourage you to keep the faith. In all honesty, with the number of followers you have, the curt responses don't surprise me. It can be tiresome to deal with the "You don't leave Jesus because of Judas" pat responses to what I'm sure you regard as a true crisis of faith and unbelief. It also comes from complete strangers on the internet, so the currency rate of the comments is proportionate. 

The one thing I think you are honest about is that you are no model of anything, whether in faith or life, that should be emulated. I'll concur with that, and there's some benefit there: we shouldn't be putting people on pedestals. I've been hurt a number of time by people I put stock in, only to see them lose faith or leave the Church or defect in other ways. Joseph Sciambra was one man who kind of broke my heart in that way, though I don't fault him for it. It is a tough time of battle for all of us, and we shouldn't be surprised by such things in the end. 

I found you to be adept at the things of life, but you seemed to have an arterial blockage to the heart with regards to the things of the spirit. It was as if you could only see the darker sides, the doubt, the human error, and it threatened to consume you. I kind of backed up at that point in the event the black hole bleeding out would swallow my own faith as well should I follow you any further. 

Though I found you to be an honest inquisitor, the lack of charity could be abrasive at times. You admitted to dealing with issues of anger in your life; that is not my issue, but I'm sure it's no peach to deal with. You tended to shoot people down, which I guess is just what you're forced into on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, in the interest of time. You wouldn't be alone or unique in that sense. I've also found you critical of things that other people hold close to them--the teachings of certain saints, for example. Again, it's your platform. I don't think anyone is holding you up as a model of faith or virtue. And I'm sure it's hard to divest yourself of the decades or belief and involvement in this kind of ecclesial community, both in person and online.  

I'm not going to offer platitudes with regards to the Church. I'm sure you've dealt with a lot of betrayal and deception that can be hard to walk back from. Maybe I don't have as much baggage as you, or maybe I'm just more naïve. My spiritual:human ratio can be skewed towards seeing behind the veil more these days, so I don't get as bogged down with the human error within the Church and outside of it. 

If I had any advice for you (not that you asked for it), it would just be used your new found time away from 1P5 to sit in Adoration before the Lord as a blank slate. I never got the impression from your writing or pronouncements that you spent solid time in prayer. Maybe I just wasn't seeing it, of course. But that never came through. You seem like you love your wife and care well for your family. I do pray for you that the fissure wound that may be keeping you from intimacy with the Lord in these ways is healed over time, and that you find your way. I think you're trying to figure it out at this point (aren't we all?). Being in the public eye can, I'm sure, be a tiresome thing. I hope you will take the time you need to find your footing and healing. I'd still love to have that bourbon sometime.