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Notes -
I remember a Catholic friend of mine once joking that there is nothing so Protestant as caring deeply about the Vatican's opinion on something.
To be fair to them this kind of casual disobedience of otherwise-well-understood rules is very common among religions. There are large parts of the world where Muslims casually drink alcohol. Most Jews don't entirely keep kosher, though many partially keep it. Catholics, of course, famously disregard the rules on everything from contraception to the Friday fast to the Sunday mass obligation. Even when the bright-line rules are universally known - as they generally are among practitioners of the religion - they are often only casually or partially observed.
In this context scrupulous observance is more common among converts than among people raised into the tradition. If you're born and raised Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, or anything else, you have nothing to prove - you are confident in your inclusion in that community. Converts, however, do have something to prove. They need to work harder to fit in, especially since they may not know all the subtle, hidden signs of membership in a tribe. Moreover converts are on average more pious than cradle members of a faith (since changing religion is a cost), and also more likely to have made some kind of study of their new faith.
I notice that the Catholic postliberals have a lot of converts in their ranks. Sohrab Ahmari, Adrian Vermeule, J. D. Vance, etc., are all converts. Not all of them are - Patrick Deneen is from a Catholic family, and I'm not sure about Pilkington, Pecknold, or Feser - but I think they're overrepresented. Converts usually take the official, legible doctrine much more seriously.
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