an excellent point Mom - I can attest it is accurate from my limited experience having been raised in an Italian Catholic household. It was inherited with the family sauce recipe.
When my sisters and I all left "the church" all my dad (who was "excommunicated" for marrying a divorced woman) could say is "we are a catholic family, we have always been a catholic family"...Well that has changed we are now a protestant family that has some Catholic relatives *grin*.
All of us "girls" have left.. and our families are for the most part non Catholic..