I found this thread and thought it was interesting.
I was raised Catholic-- the whole schtick. Eight years of parochial grade school with nuns (back in those days, they wore "penguin suits" -- full habits), and four years at an all-boys Catholic high school with Franciscan friars where you had to take 4 years of Latin if you were in the honors program (and all I can remember, after those four years, is a proverb that says "A live dog is better than a dead lion."). I was an altar boy through high school and also sang in the choir.
Then I went to college and discovered GIRLS, and I was lost! It was the end of the '60's and the beginning of the '70's, and in short order I became a long-haired hippie musician (still play semiprofessionally today, 37 years later). I learned how to LIVE!
As far as the crux fascination goes, I think the sadism of the nuns affected me. When I was in the second grade, I watched a nun terrorize a boy for over and hour. He was acting up, and she said she was going to cut off his fingers once he found the scissors that were supposed to be in this junk drawer (they weren't). After the kid howled and screamed in terror rummaging through the drawer for an hour (and pissed in his pants), she told him to sit down and behave and she'd let it slide.
We never saw the kid again.
And sadly, this was not an isolated incident. Crap like that happened all the time.
My own crux fascination is pure fantasy. I release my aggression in the safety valve of crux stories I write based in the Roman Empire, a "safe" time because it's history-- no one could possibly be that brutal today (ha-ha!). In real life I'm a gentle soul who wouldn't harm a fly. I have no desire to put anyone on a cross, and I SURE as Hell don't want to be on one myself!