Andrew Sullivan has posted this letter from a Catholic mother:

My husband and I are raising our sons in the Catholic Church. We are active in my church, I teach religious education, we perform corporeal works of mercy with our fellow parishioners (our food pantry has added 100 families in the last six months). We are anti-abortion but pro-choice, we support gay marriage and female priests. We are not alone in our beliefs in the parish and we are often at loggerheads with our rather strict constructionist brethren.

I was quite proud of my sixteen-year-old son, who after completing two years of confirmation preparation wrote his letter to the Bishop telling him quite proudly why he did not want to become confirmed as an adult in the current church.

Read the rest and see if you find yourself asking the same question that I do: why do they insist on remaining, at least nominally, Catholic?