What I really meant was, if I totally disagreed with my church’s moral teaching on something, I’d either find another church or take another look at my stance. It seems like there are a lot of people who find it more important to be affiliated with a particular church than to actually believe what it teaches.
At least when they join some apostate group like the UCC or the ELCA you know what you’re dealing with.
The Church attracts a fair amount of what I think of as “cultural Catholics” — people who come from families who were historically Catholic and who go to church more for socialization and because it makes them feel good than because they’ve thought through the actual beliefs and agreed with them. It’s almost in the same realm as people who are Jewish by background, but not actually believers. They may go through the motions especially on the holidays and participate in the ceremonies, but if you actually questioned them, they often don’t know what they’re really doing, or don’t really believe any of what they’re professing. They’re just drawn to the externals and the memories they associate with them.
As a child of converts who was raised to take my faith seriously and who tries to know what we believe and why, I do find it frustrating. Especially when the media counts those people as real Catholics for poll purposes, thus giving the more rabid bashers in the religious forums ammunition. :-\
Maybe they just believe the church’s teaching on the validity of their authority more then they are able to believe other things. I can’t fault that even if I think it makes them wishy-washy. Better than leaving and going some place that will just water their faith down even more. At least they don’t think affiliation should be subject to their personally wavering morals because deep down they know they are not in the right.