M
meworldwide
Guest
I was born in 1969, after Vatican II, so I have no concept what life as a Catholic was like before then. I can only go by what my parents and others have told me and, from what they say, it was horrifying. At least when it came to Catholic school.
My dad always talks about how the nuns, in his own words, used to “beat the p**s out of us all the time” and my mom and others have given similar stories. My mom especially tells a story of how this elderly nun, physically and emotionally abused in the worst ways. She said the nun would twist the boys sideburns as a form of discipline and she placed a girl in the corner once and said, “Turn and face the wall. I don’t want to look at your ugly face!” Anyway, she was my uncle’s teacher a few years later and he quickly became terrified of her. My mom remembers him sitting at the kitchen table, his hand shaking so badly that he couldn’t do his homework. At night, he would lie in bed crying, so afraid to go to school again the next day. When grandma got him ready for school, he would cry and beg her, “Please don’t make me go to school, mom. Please!” Well, like any concerned mother, she took him out of the Catholic school and enrolled him in the local public school. She also allowed my mom to do the same (mom was in high school by then). But when grandma went back to the Catholic school to register my mom’s two youngest sisters, the principal nun stood at the top of the stairs and said to her, “You took your two older kids out of this school. Obviously, we aren’t good enough for you. You can put your younger kids in public school too, since that’s where your heart seems to be!”
Of course, I get angry every time I hear this story told. When my dad brings up the subject again, I ask him, “Couldn’t someone have told the bishop or someone about all this?” His response was, “Hell, no. They could have cared less. And the only reason they don’t do this kind of stuff in Catholic schools now is because they’d be busted for child abuse.” (He seems to insist that nuns are still brutal in nature and they haven’t changed at all.)
So my question is this: I read a pre-Vatican II catechism once that stated, “Catholic parents are bound under penalty of mortal sin to send their children to Catholic schools whenever it is possible to do so.” And judging from the Code of Canon Law 1917, I am given the impression that this rule was heavily enforced. So would any parent who removed their kid from a Catholic school to protect him from abuse and placed him/her in a public school have been guilty of mortal sin back then? Perhaps, if they had a sympathetic priest or bishop, maybe they could have gotten a dispensation, but what if they were denied one? What if the priest (or bishop) just told them to “get lost” like that nun did to my grandmother? And what would they have done while “waiting” for that dispensation? Just keep their child out of school altogether?
Lucky for me, I went to public school in the 70’s and 80’s, so I don’t know if it was better to be in Catholic school during those decades. And I realize that today, Catholic parents have the freedom to decide how to education their children, but just hearing the stories of these so-called “good ol’ days” of pre-Vatican II (good, how?), I’m happy not to have lived during that time and especially not to have been a Catholic parent having to deal with an issue like the one described above.
My dad always talks about how the nuns, in his own words, used to “beat the p**s out of us all the time” and my mom and others have given similar stories. My mom especially tells a story of how this elderly nun, physically and emotionally abused in the worst ways. She said the nun would twist the boys sideburns as a form of discipline and she placed a girl in the corner once and said, “Turn and face the wall. I don’t want to look at your ugly face!” Anyway, she was my uncle’s teacher a few years later and he quickly became terrified of her. My mom remembers him sitting at the kitchen table, his hand shaking so badly that he couldn’t do his homework. At night, he would lie in bed crying, so afraid to go to school again the next day. When grandma got him ready for school, he would cry and beg her, “Please don’t make me go to school, mom. Please!” Well, like any concerned mother, she took him out of the Catholic school and enrolled him in the local public school. She also allowed my mom to do the same (mom was in high school by then). But when grandma went back to the Catholic school to register my mom’s two youngest sisters, the principal nun stood at the top of the stairs and said to her, “You took your two older kids out of this school. Obviously, we aren’t good enough for you. You can put your younger kids in public school too, since that’s where your heart seems to be!”
Of course, I get angry every time I hear this story told. When my dad brings up the subject again, I ask him, “Couldn’t someone have told the bishop or someone about all this?” His response was, “Hell, no. They could have cared less. And the only reason they don’t do this kind of stuff in Catholic schools now is because they’d be busted for child abuse.” (He seems to insist that nuns are still brutal in nature and they haven’t changed at all.)
So my question is this: I read a pre-Vatican II catechism once that stated, “Catholic parents are bound under penalty of mortal sin to send their children to Catholic schools whenever it is possible to do so.” And judging from the Code of Canon Law 1917, I am given the impression that this rule was heavily enforced. So would any parent who removed their kid from a Catholic school to protect him from abuse and placed him/her in a public school have been guilty of mortal sin back then? Perhaps, if they had a sympathetic priest or bishop, maybe they could have gotten a dispensation, but what if they were denied one? What if the priest (or bishop) just told them to “get lost” like that nun did to my grandmother? And what would they have done while “waiting” for that dispensation? Just keep their child out of school altogether?
Lucky for me, I went to public school in the 70’s and 80’s, so I don’t know if it was better to be in Catholic school during those decades. And I realize that today, Catholic parents have the freedom to decide how to education their children, but just hearing the stories of these so-called “good ol’ days” of pre-Vatican II (good, how?), I’m happy not to have lived during that time and especially not to have been a Catholic parent having to deal with an issue like the one described above.