You are absolutely correct in your perception on this. Catholics are way overly hesitant to express anything about their faith. In fact, I’ve found most are apologetic about their faith. We gave up our family ties in peace to become Catholic. We are considered more outside than the family members not practicing any faith at all.
So we are like you’ve described, enthusiastic. But the interesting thing we’ve experienced is that Catholic, get offended at what we’ve learned and talk about, even at church (the parish). One accused me of being confrontational, which then led to me being called a bully by the priest, which led to my wife having a nervous break down thinking, like in our Protestant faith, we had to leave now. She called the pastor, explained what really happened and then I received an apology. Catholics are so quick to judge and so ignorant of their own faith. It’s very frustrating. They fail to understand the zeal we’ve brought into the Church, excited about Christ, willing to speak up. It’s like they want us to shut up. I’m at my whits end with some of them, including our DRE, 20 year my junior who could learn a lot from me but has too much pride to drop his guard. He’s falsely accused me more than once. He’s more interested in keeping his job from my perspective than being Christ like. We need to speak out with love about Christ. Catholics don’t like to hear the truth because it makes them feel foolish or threatened. We were taught, correctly, that around 90% of all Catholics do not know their faith. The previous DRE, very good, told us that it may be the converts that save the Church from the cradle Catholics. From my experience this seems very true. I’ve found myself among many reverts and converts. Catholics don’t know how to defend their faith. They never learned and think they know enough.
