There is a school of thought that thinking is what defines a Catholic. This school of thought requires that to be a Catholic your thinking must be consubstantial with the official thinking of the Catholic Church.
However, it is not thinking that makes a Catholic.
It is seeking that makes a Catholic. We become Catholic feet first. We become Catholic first with our feet and then with our heads. Revelation before regulation. Devotion before doctrine.
A Catholic is someone who seeks God at the Catholic holy places. Like foolish children, Adam and Eve ran away from their home with God in paradise and took us with them into godlessness. Godless is not a nice place. To rescue us from godlessness, God established an escape route, defined it with holy places, made a map of them and entrusted the map to the Church. The Church has the map and knows the way. The Church is leading a new exodus on the escape route through the hostile desert of godlessness from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh to freedom with God and their holy family in the promised land. The Church is the new Moses. The escape from godlessness to God is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect.
At the holy places, close encounters with the living God take place. No one walks away from a close encounter with the living God unchanged. No one walks away from a close encounter with the living God empty handed.
Bread and wine, when consecrated by a priest, are the throne of the Son of God upon the earth. The throne is found in the palace of the Mass.
The school of thought that thinking defines a Catholic wants us to get our heads straight before they would allow us to seek God at the Catholic holy places. Without our heads being screwed on straight, we are lesser Catholics unworthy to seek God.
The school of thought that seeking defines a Catholic holds the opinion that only the grace of God can get our heads straight. We do not have the power to get our heads straight ourselves. Right thinking is a byproduct of seeking God. We cannot help ourselves. Only God can help us.
You subscribe to one or the other schools of thought. Where do you stand?
For me, I would welcome everybody who has the desire to seek God. I would bar none. The Holy Spirit is tugging at our souls and the curious follow the tug back to its source. Far be it for me to get in the way of the curious and the Holy Spirit! Perhaps some of you are bolder than I.