Comment by dspillett

> If someone leave Scientology, they're shunned by the rest of their friends and family who are still in Scientology. Not the same for Catholocism.

Not officially across the whole church, at least not these days, but it certainly happens in some small subsets of the Catholic community and has happened in larger subsets in the not-to-distant past. Any large enough religion tends to develop localised sub-cults.

Stepping away from the Catholics and considering other Christian groups, it definitely happens in small-town America. While there is often some extra factor (daring to be different in some other way), there isn't always, and when there is the extra factor is usually framed as being against the religion or its deit{y|ies}. Sometimes the extra factor itself results in ostracisation from the local church community, so people end up in the same position through a different ordering of the same steps and/or different levels of voluntaryness.