"It's about time!"

That was how a friend and fellow Mexican-American Catholic responded to the news that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina had been elected the first Latino pope in the nearly 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. It was one of those spontaneous utterances that, while not politically correct, was at least honest and heartfelt.

It's about time.

And for wayward Latino Catholics like me, the election came at just the right moment. Just how wayward? I go to Mass five times a year, and it's been almost 40 years since my last confession. Even when I do go to church, I'm what they call a "cafeteria Catholic." I pick and choose what I like from sermons and disregard the rest. I believe in the holy trinity, but I also believe in things that the Church teaches me I shouldn't believe in -- like gay marriage and a woman's right to choose.

Where does that leave me? Some of my fellow Catholics would judge me harshly and accuse me of being insufficiently committed to our faith.

I'm not. I'm good with my faith. I pray directly to God, and I don't need an intermediary. What I'm sufficiently committed to is my Church, which frankly -- in light of its own sins -- is in no position to judge anyone. It's because of the scandal involving sex abuse of young boys by priests that the Catholic Church is -- in my life, and I'm sure in the lives of other Catholics -- hanging on by a thread. I've been tempted to leave in disgust more than once.

It doesn't help that I live in Southern California, in the shadow of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States, it was until recently under the control of Cardinal Roger Mahony. The archdiocese of Los Angeles and Mahony recently settled a child sex abuse lawsuit for nearly $10 million.

Mahony, who retired in 2011, was accused of helping a confessed pedophile priest evade authorities. Yet he was allowed to vote at the conclave in Rome.

As a Catholic, it's hard to be idealistic, cheery and hopeful when you live in Mahony's backyard. There is always news coming out of that archdiocese, and it's usually bad.

Even so, I've come to accept that the Catholic Church is home to me. It's comfortable, familiar. When I go to weddings or funerals, I know instinctively that this is where I belong. The Church is deeply flawed, and the new pope has a lot of work to do in terms of rebuilding the confidence of parishioners. But I can't go anywhere else.