I think your confusion is because you are viewing the Catholic Church through the lens of Protestantism and the Old Testament. The Catholic Church bases its conduct requirements not on the severe and complex laws of the Old Testament but upon the Beatitudes embodied in the New Testament. The role of the Church is not that of policeman and District Attorney, but of teacher and facilitator for the Salvation of all. The Eucharist is a private experience between the recipient and God. The priests and clergy accept by default the sincerity of those who present themselves for the Eucharist because there is no worldly way to know the heart of the recipient.
From the Catechism:
1972 - The New Law is called a law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who "does not know what his master is doing" to that of a friend of Christ - "For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" - or even to the status of son and heir.
Not confused, and not a Protestant.