Edward Tarte used to be a budding Catholic priest before he eventually because an atheist. He acknowledges being trapped in a bubble during his time in the Church hierarchy, never discussing the issues you imagine priests would talk about — the problem of suffering, why God is so damn evil in the Bible, gay rights, evolution, whether the Catholic Church had any legitimate authority, whether the Bible was divinely inspired, etc.
The video‘s a bit dry, but it’s rare to hear this sort of take on the priesthood from someone on the inside:
I know a lot of you attended Christian schools — maybe some of you even had your heart set on becoming a pastor at one point. Was this the case for you, too? My understanding is that Christian colleges go out of their way to discuss things like apologetics and the culture wars. They want their graduates to be armed to fight against the forces of reason and evidence.
I don’t know if Edward’s story is the norm or an anomaly, but I can understand how someone could get fed up with all that ritual stuff when you can’t even answer the questions non-Christians tend to have about the faith in our society.
If he can leave the Church after becoming one of its leaders, though, there’s hope for everyone else.