OTOH, I found the teachers in the U.K. back in the 50’s to be far stricter and meaner than the nuns in the U.S. at the time. Where I attended school in London, it wasn’t uncommon to have multiple scars or imprints across the palm of your hands from the teachers’ stick just for having an inkblot in your exercise book. And then to have to be humiliated as you stood in front of the class getting your hand whacked…Berating them, though, for blowing on a candle too hard would, however, seem to be overly harsh for first graders.
I can say at least from my uncle’s experience in the Philippines, that cruelty or at least overwhelming strictness was somewhat the norm, and this was largely reinforced in the home. My grandfather grew up in the Second World War, and was a cop in the middle of a military dictatorship. Society valued on the surface a certain rigidity. He could be very harsh, which is strange because now he’s always so gentle. I guess he realized his mistake. But back in the old days everyone was like that, especially after the War.
My uncle and much of my mom’s family went to Catholic school. There was a pattern in those priests and religious educated in America or primarily by Americans (mostly Irish Americans) tended to be very rigid, joyless types, while those who were educated in, say, Spain, or in the country tended to be more joyful, though still orthodox.
I think you must have gone to a very strict school. I went to school in the UK in the 50s and don’t remember anything like that.OTOH, I found the teachers in the U.K. back in the 50’s to be far stricter and meaner than the nuns in the U.S. at the time. Where I attended school in London, it wasn’t uncommon to have multiple scars or imprints across the palm of your hands from the teachers’ stick just for having an inkblot in your exercise book. And then to have to be humiliated as you stood in front of the class getting your hand whacked…
THANK YOU. This needs to be said. “Joyless” is a perfect description. Observation of ALL the rules is just the table ante, what it costs to get into the game. Our duty as Catholic Christians merely begins there. But making rigid observation of the rules a fetish is wrong. It is the means to the end and not an end in itself. Our end is to know love and serve God in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next. Fixating on the rules obstructs our ability to love God and others. We must follow the rules, all of them, but we must take it well beyond there.But here’s a piece of advice to such Catholics: your attitude may well do harm to the goal of evangelization. Your attitude may drive potential Catholics from your chapels and churches. Your attitude may well convey the impression to such individuals that they would want no part of such a practice.
Matthew Chapter 23The people who invariably caused Jesus to lose his temper were the rule-obsessed pharisees. Perhaps our friends should look closely at the gospels to learn from Jesus’s passionate reactions against this very demeanor.
Thank you, for your judgement and condemnation. :tiphat:Measuring everything out by adherence to the rules is evidence of a lack of both faith and charity. Most of all it’s indicative of a deep mistrust of God. That is a spiritual sickness.
To be fair, though, I still admired the British way of teaching religion among other things at the time. I became more open to ecumenism than perhaps many of my U.S. classmates were.I think you must have gone to a very strict school. I went to school in the UK in the 50s and don’t remember anything like that.
True, there was the strap, administered by the headteacher, but that was only for very rare occasions.
I’m glad to read the experiences of those cradle Catholics such as yourself who can relate family experiences through the generations. Those of us who are converts can learn a lot from this.I’m just having a terrible time relating to the complaints in this thread.
Obviously. I can’t see the “joyless ness”. I’m close
to sixty, been attending the Church all my life,
both Melkite and Roman, my parents were Catholic as
well as my grandparents and in laws, probably because
we qualify as legalistic joyless types and never
bothered to look outside our own faith when marrying.
My children attended a terrifically traditionally Catholic
school complete with the rarity in the late 90’s of being
taught by actual nuns and priest not so much laity.
The school principal was the mother superior with
a vow of silence! She was happy as a clam lol and the
kids lived her and all their teachers.
I admit that in 2003 I did meet a priest who was
mean just plain mean. But he was a vacation relief
priest who we never saw again. But yes I did meet
one mean priest in my lifetime.
I have never witnessed any of this stuff y’all are
complaining about but sorry you have been unhappy
with your experiences in Catholicism.
But you know what? Jesus never said: "For a
good time, follow me."I’ve actually worried that
we weren’t suffering enough in my family but then
again it does take a certain disposition.