I was also brought up in a heavily Catholic area.
This isn’t a matter of only one or two Catholic churches in town, like might be in the south, but a Catholic Church about every mile and a half from each other, all with sizable congregations, across the whole city and suburbs. Lots of Irish, Italians, and Pollacks, which should tell you something about the mindset.
Come Christmas and Easter, it was standing room only if you weren’t early.
These were not odd isolated people who thought like this. It was the VAST majority of a large population.
I take it you interviewed every one of them (so that you KNEW what they thought, rather than just assuming they thought what your parents thought), collated your data, filtered it for education and years spent studying theology, and in general made sure it was representative of the Holy Church throughout all the world.
You did make SURE your date was representative right? You wouldn't decide an organization was thoroughly wrong without scrupulous study, would you?