text: Converts are always the most brittle practitioners of their new religion. Unlike people who are born into a particular faith tradition, converts expect everyone to abide by their particular understanding of the faith. When people ignore their "rules" it upsets their little apple cart and they get frustrated. Ross Douthat is a perfect example of this phenomenon - if anyone's more Catholic than the pope, it's he. And he's hardly alone. Rod Dreher is another one who comes to mind, but now that I think about it, he's already passed through his R.C. "phase" and has moved on to eastern orthodoxy, the ultimate destination for protestant conservatives for whom Roman Catholicism is not catholic enough.