> Are you saying that a group where everyone has to be a catholic is somehow diverse?
You've clearly never lived in an area with high density of a specific religious group. At a certain threshold, yes, there can be more diversity in a single religious congregation than is present in most local environments short of the local public school.
If most of your neighbors are Catholic, then you'll often just show up for the Catholic events regardless of whether you deeply believe it because that's where the community is. That's essentially what OP said about their own experience—listening to the catechism was just the tax to pay for the community event.
I actually did. The people who went to these centers were definitely not diverse in any sense of the word.
And the range of accepted ideas or opinions, political or cultural, was remarkably small. Kids who went to these centers were very alike. That is why it felt so good to them .
You've clearly never lived in an area with high density of a specific religious group. At a certain threshold, yes, there can be more diversity in a single religious congregation than is present in most local environments short of the local public school.
If most of your neighbors are Catholic, then you'll often just show up for the Catholic events regardless of whether you deeply believe it because that's where the community is. That's essentially what OP said about their own experience—listening to the catechism was just the tax to pay for the community event.