“Many who misunderstand the Catholic Church today have already made up their mind that the Church is wrong, thus never bothering to pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to find out what the Church really teaches. This is being close-minded. “
I left 6 years after i became born again, and having sought to serve the Lord in Rome (CCD teacher, Lector), as a faithful weekly (or more) practicing Catholic (and raised as such, with 2 uncles who were priests), but had i know what i know now i think i would have left sooner.
But which i did after a clear answer to sincere prayer, and without ill motive, and like most who become evangelical , it was not primarily doctrine (though i saw some discordance with Scripture), much less desire for liberal renderings, but mostly it was because of the deadness in Rome (the charismatic meetings were an improvement, but among other weights, the hierarchy joined them to Marxist social justice nuns, in trying to validate us i suppose), versus the manifest faith of evangelicalism, though this was quite sparse in my heavily Catholic area (thank God for radio).
As for continuity of faith being a reason, not only does this require some selective reading, but it makes Scripture a secondary source, rather than being the standard it is shown to be.
He would not have found a separate class of ordained men called priests (or basically restricted to those who have the gift of celibacy)
or infant baptism,
or prayers for or to the departed,
or indulgences to gain deliverance for souls in Rome’s purgatory,
or exhortations to submit to a supreme magistrate over all in Rome, much less a demigod caesariopapacy,
nor presumed perpetual assured formulaic infallibility,
or the church led by grossly immoral men, with a high percentage of homosexual clergy,
or largely characterized by perfunctory professions and confidence in ritual,
nor ruling over those without by force, or waging war against theological dissenters with the sword of men,
etc.
Yet this did not exclude that enough truth was preserved that souls could be saved by looking to Christ past the accumulate trappings of institutionalized religion, which exists within Protestantism as well, but the body is not one member but many.