The project started in St. Louis, but the editors cast their net for authors from around the country. Perhaps the most touching of these stories comes at the very end of the book, Wisconsin-born sociologist Sheila Nelson’s “Catholic to the Core: On Refusing to Leave Home.” She entered a convent at the age of 14, began a new journey at 31, and made a smooth transition to a new life as a laywoman within her church.

“So, no, I’m not leaving my church,” she writes. “I certainly understand my brothers and sisters who need to go because of the intensity of the hurt, the reality of the abuse, the absence of the nourishment they so desperately need. But I feel God’s call to stay right where I am, to sink my roots ever deeper, to renew my commitment daily. … As for me, this is where I am finding my God. This is who I am. How could I ever go anywhere else?”