Catholicism. Even when you're not particularly religious, it can be a huge part of your ethnic and generational identity. You are also generally encouraged to endure whatever you encounter, and if the wrong you endure is both in the church and unbearable, you are to seek another part of the church that does not have this problem. You are, in every circumstance -- even when your kid is getting raped by a priest -- to remain in the church.

I doubt very much that they ever communicate this in so many words (though I have known people that got something very close) but it is hammered in from your earliest hour in every possible way, especially if your schooling was Catholic.

That is why this loving father was punished, and so severely, even if they did not admit it directly: he put his son over the church, and the Catholic church unironically considers itself to be on par with God, to the point that the pope, when speaking ex cathedra, is considered to be the infallible voice of God on earth.

So for Catholics, the full expectation would be that the wife and kids would remain Catholic, even though the marriage is intact and the husband is now excommunicated: loyalty to the church precedes the marriage in importance, and historically always has. Even for as much as a woman is supposed to submit to her husband, the earliest female saints were often women who refused a marriage with someone not of the faith, often by suicide or by choosing death over the marriage to the unfaithful, and these saints are still celebrated.

Also, a mother finding herself strapped to a suddenly non-Catholic husband would also be expected to take it upon herself to ensure that her Catholic children are also brought up in the church, even if it means doing so without their father, even if it means she gets the stink eye whenever she goes, even if going is a living hell for her and her family, which it arguably has been.

All of this is not so much dogma, though the basis of it certainly is, as it is simply written into every fiber of Catholic living.

And the piece of shit pedophile defender that excommunicated this guy -- doing it in such a way that it harmed the entire family -- knew all this when he did it, even more completely and personally than I or anyone else could possibly describe it, and was glad.

NOTE: I am an atheist and do not personally believe or defend any of it, so don't come at me: this is simply an explanation, NOT a defense.