I was amazed, when we came up here, at what some folks believed 'The Church' taught. They'd learned from Sister Mary somebody, in grade school, something that was NOT part of Church teaching, but they were just SURE it was, because she said so. They never checked into it for themselves. I just never understood that attitude. Maybe it was growing up where Catholics were only 3% of the population. We had to know what we were about so we could explain it to folks who were not that receptive. ;o)
Maybe it's all the cussed inde-G.D.-pendent Scotch-Irish around here, but "because Sister Mary Attila said so" doesn't cut it! And I think having to explain and defend on a regular basis has a lot to do with that.
We investigated the Church up and down and inside out before converting (I'm not only Scotch-Irish, I'm a naturally suspicious courthouse rat of a lawyer). I found nothing to dissuade us from conversion -- in fact the Church has its act together substantially more than our former locus -- the Episcopal Church (hey, what can I say, I was 6th-generation Anglican. It was a bad habit). The only reason you don't read all sorts of scandal about that outfit is because the media knows that TEC is on its side and will not report any of it.