There are many, many posters on CAF who can remember a time not very long ago when those who opposed the core teachings of the Church ceased identifying themselves publicly as Catholic. Even people without very much formal education. They understood clearly that there was no such thing as an invented Catholicism, a “personal” or “private” Catholicism. When they came to a fork in the road (which many did!) – such as an unwillingness to refrain from remarriage after divorce, such as weekly Mass or the Easter obligation, such as disinterest in the spiritual and practical discipline which assumes some regularity with Confession, they generally did not parade a watered down faith, hypocritcally.
When the question came up in social circles, they would say honestly, “I’m not really a practicing Catholic any more; I used to be.” Also, more often than not, a respect remained – not only for the teachings and for the permanent moral authority of the Church, but for personal truth/witness itself. IOW, they honored the standard of conforming one’s beliefs (and one’s attempt at a conforming personal behavior) with the official, orthodox standards laid out by their Church. So, the admission of not practicing any more was followed quickly with an acknowledgement of weakness on their part – as opposed to a complaint about the Church or a prideful assertion of superior personal “authority” versus the Roman Church. (There was invariably a comment which accompanied – something like…“but I know I should be [a better Catholic, a practicing Catholic,”] etc.) Not, “I think the Church is wrong,” or “I think the Church should change with the times,” or “I have an independent conscience which disagrees with the Church.” They “got it” that if their conscience “disagreed,” the truth was on the side of the Church, and it was their own thinking that was amiss. It was merely that they had succumbed to their own weakness (they offered).
It is sometimes assumed that a misinterpretation of Vatican 2 is the root of all the misguided spinoffs of the self as the center of moral authority, but lately I have come to believe, that while such misinterpretation is an amazingly convenient excuse, the real reason may lie more with the tendencies in society over the last 20 years to claim personal expertise in all matters, including religion. (“Everybody’s an expert.”) Asserting expertise is also a means to claiming authority.
JMO