Those Catholic School Nuns

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miamaximaculpa

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Hi all,

I am a convert to Catholicism, so I did not go through the Catholic educational system, especially those parochial schools that were staffed by professed religious.

However, invariably I am assailed by those were once Catholic, and those who are barely Catholic, and use their experiences (or vicariously) of the Catholic education system as a pretext for their lack of living out their faith.

I’ll get things like the nuns were mean, cruel, instilled a sense of going to hell for eating a baloney sandwich on Friday, used corporal punishment, and on, and on and on.

Even my wife uses the experiences of her father who went to Catholic school, and related to her (and to me through her) how he was left handed, and the nuns “beat” it out of him.

Any advice as to how to respond?

Thanks, and Happy Memorial Day
 
Having gone to Catholic schools for my first 12 grades, I’m convinced that a great deal of what you mention is myth of the form of “when I was a kid I had to walk 10 miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways!” Yes, they were strict, but so were lay teachers. But I never ran across one who was cruel. Of course, the human condition being what it is, I’m sure there were cruel nuns just as there are cruel everyone else. But I really think a great many people like to exaggerate (either for the amusement factor, or to justify their later behavior, or for whatever other reasons) their “bad old Catholic school days.”

The forcing of left-handed children to be right-handed, for example, was a very common thing in general a few generations ago, and certainly not limited to Catholic nuns. BTW, I’m left-handed and not one nun ever made the slightest attempt to change me.

Remember, non-Catholic parents have always been trying to get their children into Catholic schools. That should tell you something.
 
miamaximaculpa said:
Hi all,

I am a convert to Catholicism, so I did not go through the Catholic educational system, especially those parochial schools that were staffed by professed religious.

However, invariably I am assailed by those were once Catholic, and those who are barely Catholic, and use their experiences (or vicariously) of the Catholic education system as a pretext for their lack of living out their faith.

I’ll get things like the nuns were mean, cruel, instilled a sense of going to hell for eating a baloney sandwich on Friday, used corporal punishment, and on, and on and on.

Even my wife uses the experiences of her father who went to Catholic school, and related to her (and to me through her) how he was left handed, and the nuns “beat” it out of him.

Any advice as to how to respond?

Thanks, and Happy Memorial Day
Click to expand...
I would just say, “I’m sorry you had that experience”.

As for me, I loved the nuns at our school I even had a crush on one of them. She looked just like Miss Jane from the Beverly Hillbillies and she was learning to play guitar at the same time I was. I remember I used to go and sit with her in her office after school and we’d listen to records and try to pick out the guitar parts together. I remember she was always trying to get me to sing.

We had two priests at our school. One was pretty cool, but the other was your stereotypical priest, grabbing boys by the ear and smacking them around. Fortunately, he dealt mostly with the older kids.
 
VociMike said:
Having gone to Catholic schools for my first 12 grades, I’m convinced that a great deal of what you mention is myth of the form of “when I was a kid I had to walk 10 miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways!”
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I’m not so sure it is. When I was in college, one of my professors and mentor used to tell us about being beaten when he was a kid in Catholic school. Given that he was a Catholic monk, I don’t think he’d have a reason to make up a story that painted the Catholic Church in such a light.
Remember, non-Catholic parents have always been trying to get their children into Catholic schools. That should tell you something.
Click to expand...
Actually, my parents put me in Catholic school precisely because they believed the nuns to be so strict (at the time, nobody knew what ADHD was and thought I just needed discipline) and my Catholic step-father was greatly disappointed to learn that they no longer hit us with the ruler.
 
The nuns in my school are very nice people. Only one was actually my teacher (theology class). She liked me because even though I didn’t get great grades (though I did pretty well) I asked the most questions.

As for Priests, another theology teacher in my school is a blind Priest. My friends say that he’s one of the best teachers in the school. They don’t act unreasonably strict or mean or anything like that.
 
Danny_Clover said:
As for me, I loved the nuns at our school I even had a crush on one of them. She looked just like Miss Jane from the Beverly Hillbillies .
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Hah! That is too funny.

My experience was similar to Danny’s. The nuns at my school were great and really did a fine job.
 
Don’t know if I’d call it a crush, but we had one young and attractive nun at our school, and I and many other of the boys certainly noticed it, and behaved accordingly (which is to say, awkwardly 🙂 )
 
My dad went to Catholic school through 8th grade, and has nothing bad to say about the nuns who taught him–he has a lot of good memories. That’s a small miracle, considering he left the Church as a teenager and has continued to vehemently oppose it for the last four decades! 🙂
 
I had good experiences with nuns. When I was disciplined I knew I deserved it. Yup I was forced to stand up and got tapped on the behind with Sister’s pointer. 😦 It was embarassing in front of the whole class. We had 40 students. The nuns had to keep order so we could learn. And learn we did… I have no issues with any of it. Us boys could be a handful.

I witnessed no abuse.

Sometimes I didn’t think Sister liked me or thought highly about me. When it was time for parent teacher day - she would tell mom my misbehaviors, but then tell mom about my positives. What a lift that was. I saw the loving side of SIster outside the classroom.
 
Today, we are experts at blaming others for our faults. We often use the excuse that someone is too “strict” or too “closed minded” as a reason to avoid doing the difficult good in favor of the easy not so good.

i attended Catholic school through the 6th grade & while some nuns were strict, they all were wonderful dedicated teachers.

i was so far ahead of the public school kids when i transferred to a public school in the 7th grade it was embarrassing. i coasted for the next 6 years, graduating with nearly straight A’s, despite rarely opening a book!

We’ve been “dumbed down” by our own laziness & inability to accept personal responsibility for our actions.

**Jesus, our first Catholic school teacher, was rejected by most of the people of His day & put to death!

“And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mk 8:31).**

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark
 
From my blog:
When I was a kid I honestly believed the nuns all went to the same Gestapo school!
I thought the principal took a strange delight in paddling those rotten kids sent to her office (I spent a lot of time there). I was the problem kid in that school, always in trouble, never doing my assignments, always in fights. I must have been a handful for those nuns, I looked at them at the time as mean. I reasoned they always looked at me as ‘the problem kid’.
There was one nun however.Sister Lenora was my math teacher and I hated her. We were always butting heads. I was a day-dreaming hyper-active kid, school and homework were a distraction for me. Often, a whack upside the head or on the butt got my attention. Sister Leonora seemed to me to be especially mean. I always felt like she was singling me out. I mean, after all, there were worse kids in that class.
One day, when I really messed up a math assignment, she kept me after school (again) and made me come up to the convent (attached to the school). I figured my life was over and I would be sucked into whatever vortex was inside that building. I went in and she sat me down and tried desperately to teach me. But I wasn’t trying at all. I expected the beatings to begin at any moment.
But it didn’t.I looked at her, my arch-nemesis, and she was in tears.
She told me I was bright child and I had enormous potential, and I shouldn’t throw it away. We finished the lesson and she sent me home. Before I left she hugged me and said she would be praying for me. I saw her in a different light. The years have come and gone, but I have not forgotten Sister Lenora, nor her prayers for me.
Those prayers reached far into the future.
 
JustaServant said:
From my blog:
When I was a kid I honestly believed the nuns all went to the same Gestapo school!
I thought the principal took a strange delight in paddling those rotten kids sent to her office (I spent a lot of time there). I was the problem kid in that school, always in trouble, never doing my assignments, always in fights. I must have been a handful for those nuns, I looked at them at the time as mean. I reasoned they always looked at me as ‘the problem kid’.
There was one nun however.Sister Lenora was my math teacher and I hated her. We were always butting heads. I was a day-dreaming hyper-active kid, school and homework were a distraction for me. Often, a whack upside the head or on the butt got my attention. Sister Leonora seemed to me to be especially mean. I always felt like she was singling me out. I mean, after all, there were worse kids in that class.
One day, when I really messed up a math assignment, she kept me after school (again) and made me come up to the convent (attached to the school). I figured my life was over and I would be sucked into whatever vortex was inside that building. I went in and she sat me down and tried desperately to teach me. But I wasn’t trying at all. I expected the beatings to begin at any moment.
But it didn’t.I looked at her, my arch-nemesis, and she was in tears.
She told me I was bright child and I had enormous potential, and I shouldn’t throw it away. We finished the lesson and she sent me home. Before I left she hugged me and said she would be praying for me. I saw her in a different light. The years have come and gone, but I have not forgotten Sister Lenora, nor her prayers for me.
Those prayers reached far into the future.
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Wow! That is an amazing story! Thanks for sharing! 👍

Also, I think that one thing that your story highlights is the fact that teacher nuns really do care about their pupils. They are strict for a reason, because they see potential in you and want you to use that potential to the best of your ability.

I did not go to a Catholic school. I went to public school for all of my schooling except for almost 2 semesters of college which were at a General Baptist university. I wish that I had gone to a Catholic school but my parents weren’t that well off and so could not really afford to put me in a private school of any kind. However, my grandparents did almost put me in a Pilgrim Holiness private school. And if you know anything about the Pilgrim Holiness denomination, you’d know that they are fundamentalists through and through. Women have to wear dresses at all times, jewelry isn’t allowed (except for maybe a wedding ring), makeup isn’t allowed, the internet is allowed, etc etc etc. Well, my grandparents thankfully asked me for my (name removed by moderator)ut on what they were considering and I told them that I didn’t really want to go there because they make you wear dresses. I would have only had to wear dresses while at school since I wasn’t a member of their denomination though. But I hated dresses since a relatively early age and so they didn’t force me to go.
 
I cringe every time I see some “comic” on TV bash nuns for a cheap laugh, or when I hear the horror stories of cruelty that are common (particularly among former Catholics).

I had 16 years of Catholic education, with two different orders of sisters, and cherish every day of contact with them. Surely a few were strict and some crabby – but they were all individual and all human.

However – I suspect that some of the variance in experiences may be due to locale. I grew up on the West Coast and my dearest friend on the East Coast – and her experiences were mostly negative and included some instances of too-enthusiastic discipline and unkindness.

No one can devalue the excellent education those thousands and thousands of selfless sisters gave to generations of children. We had a rock-solid foundation in our faith and, as one poster said, our Catholic schools nearly always provided a better overall education than any public or other type of private school. I think a lot of that had to do with the discipline that accompanied their teaching – and the respect they demanded and received. Teaching methods and conditions have changed – but maybe not for the better.

They were certainly not perfect women, but they were the best models of Catholic women I personally had in my life.
 
miamaximaculpa said:
Hi all,

I am a convert to Catholicism, so I did not go through the Catholic educational system, especially those parochial schools that were staffed by professed religious.

However, invariably I am assailed by those were once Catholic, and those who are barely Catholic, and use their experiences (or vicariously) of the Catholic education system as a pretext for their lack of living out their faith.

I’ll get things like the nuns were mean, cruel, instilled a sense of going to hell for eating a baloney sandwich on Friday, used corporal punishment, and on, and on and on.

Even my wife uses the experiences of her father who went to Catholic school, and related to her (and to me through her) how he was left handed, and the nuns “beat” it out of him.

Any advice as to how to respond?

Thanks, and Happy Memorial Day
Click to expand...
I went to Catholic School for eight years staffed by both Teachings Sisters (Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur) and also lay teachers. My wife went through 12 years of Catholic School and so had even more exposure. Her experience was similar to mine.
We had tough teachers, easy teachers, “mean” ones, stern ones, loving ones, happy ones, boring ones and fascinating ones. And I can tell you that I really don’t find any difference in any of those catagories between the Sisters and the Lay teachers.

As to the education we received, it was top notch. I would not trade it for anything.

I don’t really know how to respond to people who blame their experience in school for their lack of faith. Basically it is a cop-out and if you tell them that they won’t accept it.
Regardless of how a “nun” made them feel when you were 6 or 10 or even 15 years old, they are now an adult and are responsible for their own soul and their own faith walk.
I don’t think that when they stand at Judgement Jesus is going to be very impressed with, “It’s all Sister’s fault”.

Just my 2 cents.

Peace
James
 
VociMike said:
Having gone to Catholic schools for my first 12 grades, I’m convinced that a great deal of what you mention is myth of the form of “when I was a kid I had to walk 10 miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways!” Yes, they were strict, but so were lay teachers. But I never ran across one who was cruel. Of course, the human condition being what it is, I’m sure there were cruel nuns just as there are cruel everyone else. But I really think a great many people like to exaggerate (either for the amusement factor, or to justify their later behavior, or for whatever other reasons) their “bad old Catholic school days.”

The forcing of left-handed children to be right-handed, for example, was a very common thing in general a few generations ago, and certainly not limited to Catholic nuns. BTW, I’m left-handed and not one nun ever made the slightest attempt to change me.

Remember, non-Catholic parents have always been trying to get their children into Catholic schools. That should tell you something.
Click to expand...
It was my mom who was on me to be “right handed” until one of my teachers, a nun told her to leave it be. I am still a lefty. 😉 Thanks Sister Mary Robert.

Peace
James
 
Danny_Clover said:
I would just say, “I’m sorry you had that experience”.

**As for me, I loved the nuns at our school I even had a crush on one of them. She looked just like Miss Jane from the Beverly Hillbillies and she was learning to play guitar at the same time I was. I remember I used to go and sit with her in her office after school and we’d listen to records and try to pick out the guitar parts together. I remember she was always trying to get me to sing. **

We had two priests at our school. One was pretty cool, but the other was your stereotypical priest, grabbing boys by the ear and smacking them around. Fortunately, he dealt mostly with the older kids.
Click to expand...
This reminds me too that we had nuns who would get out and play baseball in full regalia.

Peace
James
 
JRKH said:
I went to Catholic School for eight years staffed by both Teachings Sisters (Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur) and also lay teachers. My wife went through 12 years of Catholic School and so had even more exposure. Her experience was similar to mine.
We had tough teachers, easy teachers, “mean” ones, stern ones, loving ones, happy ones, boring ones and fascinating ones. And I can tell you that I really don’t find any difference in any of those catagories between the Sisters and the Lay teachers.

As to the education we received, it was top notch. I would not trade it for anything.

I don’t really know how to respond to people who blame their experience in school for their lack of faith. Basically it is a cop-out and if you tell them that they won’t accept it.
Regardless of how a “nun” made them feel when you were 6 or 10 or even 15 years old, they are now an adult and are responsible for their own soul and their own faith walk.
I don’t think that when they stand at Judgement Jesus is going to be very impressed with, “It’s all Sister’s fault”.

Just my 2 cents.

Peace
James
Click to expand...
👍👍
 
I had nuns teach me from 1950 to 1963, and yes they were strict, but never mean. They would play soccer, basketball and even go bowling with us. My two best friends attended public school, and they constantly complained about the mean teachers they had.
🤷
 
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