The old ladies in our former ECUSA congregation were still saying that our former rector was "such a nice boy" even after he'd been deposed by the bishop and was sweating bullets with the D.A. . . . .
I don't know, but I sure hope we don't turn into them someday. I can't imagine how anybody could be that dumb (except that a lot of them were probably pretty naive even when they were younger).
I think the big problem is that the churches have all adapted to them and basically the old lady mentality governs a lot of Christian churches in this country. Whenever I see parishioners sally forth to defend some priest who was busy stealing from the collection plate to support his boyfriend (or, a little less offensively, buy himself a retirement condo in Ireland!), I just slap my forehead and wonder what's to be done.