I agree that the post is well written, but it is also dry, and the reasons for lapsing and for re-converting are dry. Dr. Vost's intellectual conversion story contains no verve, no excitement. His seems a strange journey, unlike the conversions of the most of my acquaintance. Those were mostly due to concupiscence and hence were racy, bizarre, fearful, full of bite, sorrow, and woe. Their stories were easier to compassionate and more familiar. Personally, my intellectual belief has never wavered. I wished only that my conscience would quiet for a while...Those wishes and that voice were at war.

There was previously an issue with comments disappearing from older OPs, and Brandon was accused of some sort of malevolence regarding that. I thought that he had fixed the problem.
If you left Catholicism for Protestantism then you would be preparing yourself to me be on to atheism. An excellent book on that progression is by Brad Gregory titled The Unintended Consequences of the Protestant Reformation, recommended by Luke Breuer. There is also an excellent article related to subjectivism at https://www.crisismagazine.com/2018/german-bishops-employ-lutheran-subjectivism-marriage-agenda

Dr. Vost's OP perhaps drew no comments because it is a somewhat typical story of someone raised as a Catholic who lost his faith as a young adult, thinking that the wisdom of today's world was superior to that of an "ancient and outdated" Church. Thus, the seemingly superior logic of the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand led him into atheism -- it taking another quarter century for him to find his way back to the Church of his youth. Dr. Feser tells a similar story about himself.

What strikes me is the fact that several of those who comment on this site also were Catholic before becoming atheists or agnostics. Some of them appear impressively knowledgeable about at least some aspects of Catholicism.

I have known many Catholics who were raised in the Church, got all the sacraments, were trained in all the rituals, but themselves left the Church upon reaching adulthood -- in one case, by taking a single college course in world religions.

My suspicion is that, for whatever reason, many young Catholics today are never clearly taught two things: (1) that the Catholic Church still proclaims that it is the one, true religion, and (2) why number one is true. It is the second thing, solid intellectual defense of the Faith, that most Catholics have not been receiving in the last six or so decades. There has been a lot of preaching, but not much teaching. It is no shock, therefore, to learn that many of these young Catholics leave the Church the moment their inquisitive intellects are confronted with divergent explanations of reality -- usually combined with caustic criticisms of Catholicism.

My personal suspicion is that, despite a certain knowledge of the history and doctrines of the Church that ex-Catholics have, there must have been some particular element, practice, or doctrine that they did not and do not fully understand -- or some negative personal experience that they felt justified them to leave the Church. My hope for all of them, of course, is that they will eventually -- like Dr. Vost and Dr. Feser -- find their way back to their original home in Catholicism.

What seems a bit odd to me, though, is that the abandonment of Catholicism should lead so many into outright agnosticism or atheism. Were I to somehow lose my own faith in Catholicism (through my own fault, not the Church's), I am could not become an atheist -- because of over half a century of studying the objections to, and proofs for, God's existence -- starting with my doctoral dissertation and first book being focused totally on the Five Ways. I do not say this as a matter of intellectual pride, but simply from life long experience of looking at the proposed alternatives and finding the sole rational mandate to be theism. I do not criticize those who do not accept the proofs because they do not see them to be conclusive. But for myself, I cannot avoid the metaphysical conclusions.

And, if I am constrained by classical theism to assent to the reality of the God who comports with Christian tradition, I am logically led to conclude that, since truth is one, there can be only a single true revelation from that same God. As St. Thomas argues, that revelation is both needed and to be expected. That said, of all the world's claimed supernatural revelations, Catholicism stands out as the single dominant historical and universal claim of complete truth. Thus, unaided reason leads my back to the same Catholicism that I would have abandoned. It seems that I cannot leave my starting point!

That said, I fully understand that all of us can only follow our own lights in the pursuit of truth -- and we alone know the degree of intellectual honesty with which we pursue it. Like Pope Francis, I have no right to judge others. Still, Like Pope Francis, that does not excuse me from defending objective truth -- whether known by reason or revelation.