Paradise lost for LA Times religion reporter

Published: July 25, 2007, 7:43 pm

Tags: los angeles, sexual abuse, grief, theodicy, god, christianity, media

William Lobdell's story about losing his faith while covering the Catholic sex scandal for the Los Angeles Times has gotten a lot of play.The 3,272-word piece, which ran Saturday in the Times' coveted Column One slot, recounted Lobdell's born-again moment, his praying and pleading to cover religion (for the same reason I got on the beat: because of a frustration with general news coverage of religion as a circus show) and finally his disenchantment with God's representatives here on earth. First as a columnist and then as a reporter, I never had a shortage of topics. I wrote about an elderly church organist who became a spiritual mentor to the man who tried to rape, rob and kill her. About the Orthodox Jewish mother who developed a line of modest clothing for Barbie dolls. About the hardy group of Mormons who rode covered wagons 800 miles from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, replicating their ancestors' journey to Southern California.Meanwhile, Roman Catholicism, with its low-key

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