I could no more stop being Catholic than I could stop being a native New Yorker or of Irish descent, my parent's child or my children's mother. Being Catholic is a condition of my being. It might as well be genetic. Catholicism is my faith, my culture, my heritage. The Church is my social community and my spiritual sanctuary. It is the source of the very language with which I contemplate life, and death, give thanks, seek comfort, define and comprehend the substance of things hoped for. To leave the Church for another—less sexist, less maddening—religious institution would save me...