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On this topic in particular: a survey conducted in Ireland over a decade ago found that nearly two-thirds of self-identified Catholics don't believe that the communion wafer literally transforms into the body of Christ.
Never mind the fact that they're non-observant: from a theological perspective, most Irish Catholics are Protestant in all but name. And that's not even mentioning how many of them voted to legalise abortion and gay marriage.
Which is more important to identity, ideological orthodoxy or activity? I would say having one or the other allows one a claim to identify as X, while having neither prevents it, and having both makes it impossible to avoid the identification.
Interesting. Imagine four people who call themselves Catholic:
Alice goes to Mass every day, observes the Sabbath, and follows every papal edict to the letter.
Bob professes to believe every papal edict and tenet of his faith – but in practice, he never goes to Mass, doesn't observe the Sabbath, eats meat on Fridays, doesn't give up anything for Lent etc.
Carol goes to Mass every day, observes the Sabbath, gives something up for Lent etc. – but her actual worldview is functionally indistinguishable from any of her woke friends, which entails major doctrinal disagreements with the Church on abortion, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, divorce etc. She also doesn't believe in transubstantiation.
Like Bob, David is non-observant, and like Carol he has major doctrinal disagreements with the Church, including disbelieving transubstantiation (I think this accurately describes an absolute majority of nominal Irish Catholics).
I'm sure most people would say that Alice is the "most" Catholic, or most "authentically" Catholic, or a "central example" of what we call Catholic. Equally, most people would say that David is only nominally Catholic, neither walking the walk nor talking the talk.
I'm torn on whether Bob is "more" Catholic than Carol, or vice versa. On the one hand, Carol "walks the walk" in making at least some of the sacrifices her faith demands of her, including getting up early on Sundays. On the other hand, if Catholicism is a belief system first and foremost, then holding the correct beliefs ought to be seen as far more important as following the rituals – observing the rituals when you don't believe in any of the beliefs underpinning them strikes me as sort of insincere and performative.
Authentic membership in a religion is a special case, as it's usually determined based on privately-held beliefs and active, observable behaviour. For a lot of the other categories I discussed above, authenticity is often based on only one or the other. While support for animal rights and opposition to factory farming are beliefs commonly held by vegetarians, they're not generally considered rule-in criteria: as far as I'm concerned, anyone who doesn't eat meat is a vegetarian, regardless of their worldview. Saying "I'm a vegetarian who doesn't eat meat, but I don't really have a problem with factory farming" doesn't sound incoherent to me in the way that "I'm Catholic and I go to Mass, but I don't believe in transubstantiation" does.
Carol would generally be regarded as more Catholic than Bob by most practicing Catholics and by the church hierarchy. This matrix is a live question and the Catholic Church has a literal definition of the minimum standards to be accounted a practicing Catholic- the six precepts of the church.
If Carol was a public figure she might be subject to church discipline for heretical views(Nancy Pelosi notably is), which would change the equation. But church discipline is not levied against random people for heresy.
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