Bears repeating, and we ex-Catholics do know better. We know what the Catholic church teaches because we were raised and catechized in it. We know what other Catholics that we worked with, went to school with, had communion parties, confirmation parties, marriages, and funerals with believed because we talked about it. Some of us even have family members who were in the Catholic clergy and really KNOW what the Catholic church teaches.
And yet, we're told we are wrong by someone we don't know, using only a screen name, on an internet forum. And if I have to choose who I'm going to believe about what Catholicism teaches, who would I reasonably be expected to believe? The relatives who have no cause to lie to me? Or a screen name on an internet forum who won't back up what they say, but continually tells me that I'm wrong-even when I quote vatican.va, the Catholic church website itself (which BTW, verifies with what my Catholic clergy relatives themselves told me)?
Just something to end on that might leave you with a smile.
My wife is ex-RC. The first time she walked with me to church (Baptist) on the way she asked "what if they're doing weird things and we want to leave".
I responded, "honey, I'm 6' tall 220lbs and we'll sit in the back. I don't think anyone will try to stop us."
She couldn't believe how much she enjoyed being in church and talking with the "blue haired" ladies afterwards. She never looked back.
You may “know” what the Catholic Church teaches, just as a divorced man may claim to know his ex-wife. Maybe not as well as you think ;-). I am just that being an ex- Catholic is sort of like being an ex-Protestant. It doesn’t mean that one has a thorough knowledge of the institution one has left behind. Indeed, we are probably disinclined to give full credit to to its teachings.