Fascinating thread over at Amy's

What interests me about it is how truly the stories being told there resonate with my own experience. People whose minds perpetually swim in the shallow waters of the political are frequently baffled by what keeps Catholics Catholic. As though the thing that keeps people in the Church is the beauty of their bishops.

But in reality, of course, people become and stay Catholic because they have typically had an intense personal encounter with Christ and they know it to be bound up with Church (even if they can't articulate how). This is truer now than ever, because we live in a consumer culture that provides lots of way for people to opt out of the Faith if they don't want to be Catholic anymore. The ones who stay are, increasingly, people who do so out of profound personal conviction and not merely because "I'm Italian" or whatever. Go check out Amy's thread and see some of the profound stories of *encountering God* which are the real explanation for why people are Catholic.