text: "whose search for their authentic selves leads them away from the church"
  
  Our authentic self, at least for the Baptized, is a child of God.
  
  There's a lot of "searching" going on that in the end leads to great dissatisfaction, sadness, whipsawing emotions, depression and far worse.
  
  Many people "search" for their authentic selves, and in the process get pulled into drugs, unmarried sex, thrill seeking sports, food, drink, an every changing set of "hobbies", scores of half read "self-help" books, church hopping, girl friend hopping, and now gender hopping. 
  
  It's very very simple though.  We are children of a loving God.  This knowledge should bring us into a search for a closer relationship with Him.  That relationship includes a visibile church, which is the Church that Jesus breathed life into in his Apostles, the Catholic Church, one, holy, and apostolic.