On Loss of Faith in the Roman Catholic Church

Rod Dreher writes,

At the risk of oversharing, the most painful thing about covering the scandal from 2002 until I left the Catholic Church in 2006 was losing my Catholic faith, which had been at the center of my life since my conversion in 1993.

If I have the story right, Mr. Dreher has moved from the RCC east to Orthodoxy.  If so, then we can safely assume that he is still a theist who believes in the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, and much else besides. So his loss of his Catholic faith was his loss of faith in the Roman church as the one, true, holy, catholic (universal) and apostolic church founded by Christ.  As he says a little later,

What’s worth pointing out is that the final straw was realizing that my wife and I could not trust the institution anymore.

One question that arises is whether it would be reasonable to cleave to one's faith in the institution as divinely ordained in the teeth of all the revelations of evil deeds and cover-ups.

I should think that this would prove psychologically impossible for many if not most of the laity. But I also think one could reasonably remain within the church if one accepts its traditional teachings. Michael Liccione on his Facebook page writes,

I'm Catholic because I believe that the only principled way to distinguish between divine revelation and human opinion is by the teaching of a visible authority, established by Jesus himself and temporally continuous with the Apostles, that is preserved from error by the Holy Spirit when teaching with her full authority. That's the authority which I believe the gates of hell will not prevail against. So even if the Catholic Church had to go underground, and thus become invisible to most people, there would still be her teaching and sacraments to sustain us, even if only through a few.

I would add the following. The Church is in the world where Satan is at work. So it is no surprise that Satan is at work in the Church. But if the Church was founded by Christ, the God-Man, and the current Church can trace itself back to the Founder, then there is 'no way in hell' that the gates of hell can prevail against it.

So if one accepts the RC worldview in all of its major tenets, as I believe Liccione does, then it is reasonable to cleave to one's faith in the institution as divinely ordained in the teeth of all the revelations of evil deeds and cover-ups.  This is because the worldview has the resources to explain away the appearance of its own fraudulence.

Of course, this leaves us with the problem of whether it is reasonable to accept the RC worldview in the first place.  Many will no doubt take the deep levels of corruption as good evidence that the Roman church was never the one, true, holy, catholic (universal) and apostolic church that enjoys divine sanction and is ongoingly guided by the Holy Ghost.  

But if one accepts Roman Catholicism in its orthodox form, then it is reasonable to stick with the faith despite the psychological difficulty of doing so at the present time.

Here's my problem. I accept God and the possibility of divine revelation, and I understand the need for a principled way to distinguish divine revelation from human opinion.  But what validates the RCC as this principled way and means? Well, it validates itself.

Is there a problem with that? For more on the general problem of the need for a "visible authority"  see Private Judgment?