Why is quitting the Catholic church spoken of as some type of drastic, hard step?

[rox63]

28. Similiar situation here, also in Massachusetts in the 60's and 70's

My family went to the French Catholic church around the corner from my house, and my brother and I went to the associated parish school. My father went to the same parish school when he was growing up. Other families went to the Irish church or the Italian church or the Portuguese church, depending on where they lived and their family background. It more than religious identity. It was wrapped up in ethnic, neighborhood and community identity.

Each of the parishes would have some services in the native language of the majority of their ethnic membership. This was a comfort especially to the older members, who were usually first or second generation immigrants. When I was growing up, I lived in a area with a lot of families of French-Canadian background. Even if they could speak English, a lot of the elders in the neighborhood were more comfortable speaking French.