My Catholic School Education

My Catholic School Education
I went to Catholic school in first grade, fifth through high school and college. I found it a terrible experience and am always amazed at how many people still go way out of their way to send their kids to these schools. I believe I was unfairly terrorized and exploited. I don’t think my experiences were unique, but maybe I was more sensitive or have a better memory.
Today, I am told, the schools are different. They are mostly taught by lay teachers since there are fewer nuns, brothers and priests. There is less emphasis on Catholic dogma and more on getting into the best colleges. Many of the Catholics I know today would be dismayed if their child became a nun, a brother or a priest. Here in Wilmington, the Catholic schools made a comeback when the courts forced integration through city - suburban bussing. My kids went through the public bussing and did well, but many people I know sent their kids to the Catholic schools. I know someone who teaches Catholic school in Queens, NY. Half the students are Asian and not Catholic. I conclude they are just trying to get away from Blacks.
I was born in Brooklyn to very religious Irish Catholic parents. My dad was very smart and ambitious. He skipped several grades in grammar school , and worked his way through NYU to obtain accounting and CPA degrees. He joined the Navy in WWII, and was so smart, they sent him to Babson college to learn how to keep the books. We had a picture of him in uniform, next to a stack of the Navy’s books nearly up to the ceiling. My mom never went past eighth grade, but was a great reader with wide interests.
We moved from Brooklyn to Wilmington when I was three. I was a happy unsupervised kid. I remember always playing outside with the other kids, roaming the neighborhood from about age three till first grade; kind of like in the Our Gang Comedies. Imagine the difference today. Parents would never let their kids roam freely at that age. Those were more innocent times, although world WWII was raging. By contrast, my sisters couldn’t go anywhere without an escort.
I didn’t go to kindergarten. There was none close by. I liked to play at home with tinker toys, erector sets and draw pictures when I wasn’t outside. My worst punishment was to be kept inside and see the other kids playing outside.
First grade was a big shock to my freedom. I remember my first day. The nun said we would draw soldiers. I felt thrilled since it was during the war and I loved to draw soldiers. I was disappointed when she drew 1s on the black board. My schooling went down hill from there. I do remember learning to read in one day when it was explained to me that letters had sounds.
The nun was very strict and would often get boys who were seen running home up at the front of the room and whack their bare calves with a ruler. Fortunately I never got called up, but it was scary when the list was read because I would run when I thought I was out of sight. I was kind of a happy careless kid, often in trouble. Once I had to sit in the corner for drawing the number eight backwards.
The main emphasis for first grade was receiving first communion which we were taught was truly Jesus in spirit and flesh under the appearance of bread. First we all had to learn to go to confession because one cannot receive communion if in a state of sin. To go to confession, you had to enter a dark booth and kneel down facing a priest who is sitting in the next booth. You tell him your sins through a window screen and he has the power from God to forgive. We learned about sin and how to examine our conscience to identify which sins we were guilty of. Most sins were about touching ourselves in certain parts. I had no problem with it at that time. My family was very religious. It’s strange, but even as a child, I always felt a little embarrasses to believe that bread was turned onto God.
We moved to Long Island after first grade and since there were no close by Catholic schools, I went to public school till half way through fifth grade. I loved public school. There was no homework, and plenty of emphasis on crafts and art. I love trips to the American Museum of Natural History and learning about how big the sun and stars were. In class we learned how the earth formed and about cave men. I remember my dad concerned about some of it.
I often wonder how I would have turned out if I had stayed in public school. Would I have developed the discipline to work hard that I got later in Catholic school? Or, would a love of learning inspire more self motivation? In my first report card in fifth grade, which I still have, the teacher criticized me for not working up to my potential. In the second report, I had improved greatly. So perhaps I was making the transition to more disciplined work. I have often thought that one of the purposes of school is to teach you to do things you don’t want to do. It’s great training for the corporate world. Catholic schools are great at instilling discipline, hard work and loyalty to authority with very little emphasis on independent thought. Half way through fifth grade, we moved to Buffalo and I returned to Catholic school . I hated the rest of my education.
Buffalo in 1949 was very Catholic, and the school I went to was even more so. It was small with only about 12 in a class, all taught by nuns. There was plenty of time for the nuns to tell stories, mainly about the Devil, Hell, Communists, appearances of the Blessed Virgin, the dire predictions from Our Lady of Fatima and padre Pio. I was told, the Hudson river would flow red with the blood of martyrs after the communists took over. I was very afraid of becoming possessed with the Devil which could happen to anyone, no matter how holy. We had many stories of how horrible it was in Hell. I was terrified of going to Hell. Hell was described as being stuffed into a red hot pipe for all eternity. Or as some saints had seen it, black souls being tossed about in a sea of flames. I remember being told that souls go to Hell at the same rate as the leaves fall in Autumn. I still can’t look at the falling leaves without being reminded of that.
I was told that Jews were getting their reward now which was why they were rich. They were all going to Hell. Protestants could go to Heaven if they never committed a mortal sin, but, since they could not get forgiveness because they didn’t have the sacrament of Penance (confession) , it was very unlikely that any would go their whole life without a mortal sin. We were told to be careful not to lead a Protestant into sin because we could cause them to go to Hell. I remember learning that while Protestant churches had communion, none had the Real Presence of Jesus since their ministers were not properly ordained.
We were encouraged to go to mass and communion everyday to stay in God’s good graces and avoid going to Hell. Mortal sin was the worst thing one could do and unless confessed, the penalty was Hell. Before going to confession, we had to examine our conscience to identify the sins we needed to confess. We had a book which listed the commandments and under each one was all the ways to violate them. In bold capital letters were the mortal sins. Of course, missing mass on Sunday is a mortal sin which is why the churches are full on Sunday, but no one ever did that. Under the sex related sixth and ninth commandments, everything was capitalized. That included even impure thoughts. Since the only other mortal sins we could commit were murder or bank robbery, sins were all about sex. Strangely enough though, there was no mention of masturbation; probably too heinous. Or they feared that if they mentioned it, kids might try it.
I found out about it by accident. I remember I was in seventh grade and I was laying on the floor reading a map when I had an emission. I didn’t know what it was, but looked and saw white fluid. Later I tried it on purpose and was amazed by the pleasure. I was scared because I was t sure it was wrong but since I could do it without touching myself which I knew was wrong, I had a legalistic excuse. I didn’t confess it since I didn’t know how. But I really knew it was a mortal sin. From seventh grade till about 10th I lived in a hell of guilt. Later when I finally got up nerve to confess it, I made the mistake of going to the pastor. The pastor was typical, a severe Irish authoritarian type. He told me that what I did was so bad that he could not forgive me and sent me to one of the younger priests. I went, and finally felt relief from the guilt. Going to confession was always a humiliating experience. I often wondered how girls felt about telling the priest about sexual sins. I suspected they didn’t tell.
Once they have a child convinced of the horror of Hell and the inevitability of sin and that only they can relieve the guilt through the sacraments, then they have them hooked for life. That is the purpose of Catholic education.
In Buffalo, we all went to mass on Sunday and sat as a group. Anyone who failed to go to communion was called out in class on Monday and asked to explain why. It was very embarrassing, since the only reasons for not going were that you had committed a mortal sin and failed to go to confession or that you had forgot and eaten something. In those days, breaking the fast was an easy excuse. Today the fast is no longer required, and everyone seems to go to communion. Sexual morality is not as important today. In those days guys would joke about girls who failed to go to communion, especially if they were out with a friend the night before. But, it wasn’t all that serious, necking and petting could be a mortal sin.
In those days, only about half the congregation would go to communion randomly. Today everyone goes row by row, so it’s easy to see who doesn’t go. During recent marriages and funerals, my wife and I have to sit there while everyone gets around us and it’s quite evident that I don’t go. My wife was never Catholic and not expected to go. I find it a little embarrassing since I guess I care that I don’t always have to have my non believer flag in view; especially like at my mother’s funeral.
I became an alter boy, but never saw anything out of line from any priest. They were always actually a little distant as we met before for mass in the sacristy. It’s easy to understand how a boy could be traumatized for life if a priest molested them. They would be torn between the extreme sexual morality and the extreme reference for priests. I was taught that priests represented Christ on Earth.
The hardest part about being an alter boy was learning the Latin responses to the priest which I memorized but had no idea what I was saying. I was the mainstay of the alter boys in eighth grade.
In school, the homework was piled on. Mainly meaningless writing of sentences many times. The nuns were very strict. We had to use dipping pen and ink. Ball point pens which were new at the time were considered almost immoral. Pencils were always bad .
The most damaging thing to my education was the emphasis on prayer to pass exams. During exam week, almost all the students attended mass praying that they would get good grades. Instead of being self reliant by thinking and understanding we were taught to pray. I approached exams this way all through college and didn’t get over it till in graduate school when I had to. I remember in eighth grade, we were all praying to do well on the scholarship exam to attend the local Catholic high schools. A few days before the exam, the nun got a copy of last years exam and we went over it. I remember I wasn’t paying much attention, but apparently one of the worst students in the class was. We had the same test the next day at the high school and he won first prize.
Talk about mixed messages; I remember my dad ridiculing me for praying to pass exams.
My dad was fairly strict, but it was easy to keep my distance. He was often away on business and being one of five children gave me a lot of freedom. I used to hitch hike all over the Buffalo area. I went several times with a friend to his grandmother’s farm and several times to Canada to buy fireworks. I was a fireworks nut and wonder sometimes that it’s a miracle I have all my fingers. I made my own fireworks.
Once at boy scout camp I put firecrackers on lighted cigarettes all over the camp. When they started going off, the scout master searched me, but luckily didn’t look in my back pocket.
My first year in high school I went to an all boys Christian Brothers school. Brothers are like male nuns and take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Unlike priests, they cant’ say mass or perform most of the sacraments. Almost all my classes were taught by brothers. I was in the class for the top quartile, but found it fairly difficult, mainly because I hated Latin. The brothers were ok, but had mean streaks. Unruly students were disciplined at the front of the class by slapping around and humiliated for physical defects such as being fat or acne. It never happened to me, but almost. Before class started, I shot a paper wad with a rubber band. The brother came in and found it. He insisted that the person who shot it confess. He made the class sit quietly till the person confessed. I kept quiet and no one squealed, probably because no one saw me do it. After about half an hour, he gave up, but not before severely berating the person who was keeping quiet.
The summer after my freshmen year, we moved back to Long Island. I often wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in Buffalo. The brothers were actively recruiting and I had joined a school group interested in joining. My sister who was two years ahead of me went back to Buffalo to become a nun. She left the convent and even the Church eighteen years later. Fortunately for me, the next school I attended , although Catholic, was far less religious. Thinking of my three sisters, the one who I would say is most religious today is the one who never went to Catholic school except for college.
My uncle was a priest in an order that ran a high school and college in Brooklyn. So, I was able to attend for free. I had to take the L.I. Railroad and subway , a trip that took over an hour. I remember I was always a little sick. I didn’t want to go to the school. The public high school at home down the street was a good suburban school. The Brooklyn school was more elite, requiring an entrance exam. I didn’t like the school and to my father’s dismay, nearly flunked out in my first semester, having flunked Latin and French. My father was very mad and I had to start working hard. Up to that time, I was a great model builder with many planes, boats and cars. After that, I never built another. As an adult, I visited a friend who was so proud to show me his son’s room, filled with models. It reminded me of my room as a kid. My father never took notice of any models I built.
The school in Brooklyn was certainly Catholic with prayers and religious instruction, but , there were very few priest teachers and no recruiting pressure to become priests. The school was all boys and they were much tougher than in Buffalo. Many smoked and drank beer when available and bragged about sexual activities. In Buffalo, I never heard the F word. In Brooklyn I heard it all the time. I soon fell in line to fit in since I had no friends. I started drinking beer at age seventeen and loved it . I found that it relieved my stuttering. I had a very embarrassing tendency to stutter when talking to authority figures including my father. I never stuttered when talking to my mother. I didn’t get over the stuttering till in my mid twenties when I gave up religion.
Back then the drinking age in New York was eighteen so it was not hard to get beer. I was often drinking in bars. My father never knew. He was very ill, having contracted Leukemia. He had it for five years before dying when I was Nineteen. He was never happy with my academic performance, but I was glad he saw me through my first year of college with a fairly good record.
I attended St. John’s University, a day hop college run by the same priests that ran my high school. There was definitely pressure to channel the students from the high school to the college. I really couldn’t afford a more expensive school since my dad was dying and I had four other siblings who would want to go to college. I took the SATs, (totally cold) although St. John’s didn’t require them. I hoped that maybe my mediocre record could be salvaged by a good showing and maybe I could go to a better school. In those days, the scores went to the guidance councilor and he would not tell me what I got. He said “ You could get into a lot of schools, but where do you want to go? Columbia?” To this day, I never found out my scores. So, I lived at home and worked part time and in summers to pay tuition and expenses.
I loved going to St. John’s University. I loved having classes only two or three times a week. I went to many dances, joined a fraternity and dated many girls. Long Island was a great place to grow up in the fifties. My dad was gone, my mother didn’t care how late I stayed out. I had a car, money from part time jobs and had many friends; mainly beer drinking buddies who although mostly gone, I love to this day. I always had a girl I liked, one serious. My college had groups that sponsored dances many at the best hotels in New York. I went to many , but I especially remember going to the Junior Prom at some hotel in New York, then to Greenwich Village for coffee, then on the Staten Island Ferry and then to breakfast at some diner, and getting a girl friend home by six AM. We drank a lot and necked a lot, but never had sex, that was a no no. One girl I went with off and on, went into the convent. She told me she wanted to become a nun because she was terrified of going to Hell. I heard that she came out years later and never married.
The classes were a mixed bag of a different story. I started out in pre med, but when my father died, I switched to chemistry since I knew I would never have the money for med school. In those days, people would never think to borrow money like they do today. The science, math and English courses were good and I did fairly well in most of them. The religion, philosophy and history courses were not very good. I don’t really remember how many courses I took, it seemed I had religion and philosophy every semester.
The philosophy courses were all Scholastic Philosophy based on Thomas Aquinas. They were taught as fact with no discussion of other thinking. I never read a text, just took notes and parroted them back on the tests. The philosophy courses were: Logic, Ethics, Epistemology, Theodicy, Theology, Metaphysics and Cosmology. The Cosmology contained none of the modern thinking of Einstein or modern theories. The Logic was just syllogisms, not the useful symbolic logic that may lead to computers.
The philosophy was taught to be believed as the true last word on all subjects and had lasting effect on many. I remember later as a chemistry graduate student arguing with a friend from a Catholic college who believed that the description of matter as composed of prime matter and substantial form was a better description than modern chemistry. I think the main objective to all the philosophy was to prove the existence of God, the soul and justify transubstantiation.
I don’t remember much about the religion courses except that they were taught at a low level. I never read a book. In one course, I had to memorize paragraphs and be prepared to recite them if called upon in class. Another course, was taught by a lovable priest famous as a Chaplin in WWII. Everyone got As and it was the only course I took with so many basketball players.
The Ethics course was more religion than philosophy. One of the main points was the evil of artificial birth control and how it violated Natural Law. Another interesting lesson was the principle of double effect where it’s morally ok to do a bad thing to achieve a good end if the bad effect is not directly intended. The classic example was the woman with a life threatening tubular pregnancy. It’s ok to take out the tube, but not the embryo directly. This thinking is still influential today such as in end of life situations.
The major effect, from my perspective; many of my class mates who married right after graduating had large families.
I took one History course that wasn’t very good either. It was European History about the Middle Ages and very much a white wash of the Church’s involvement in the many wars. My son had a similar course in public High School which was far more rigorous and revealing.
I remember I did study when I could but it was hard while working part time and commuting from home. I also continued to pray to pass exams. I wasn’t the only one who got that message. The chapel was standing room only for daily mass during exam week. Not so at other times.
When it came time to graduate with a B.S. in chemistry, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I took one job interview as a salesman which was a disaster. Most salesmen don’t stutter. I applied to one graduate school, U. of Connecticut. I got accepted but didn’t think I could afford to attend. When they came through with an assistantship, I accepted immediately. I had to teach labs about 12 hours a week and earned enough to pay all expenses.
It was my first time living away from home and I loved it. I was able to really concentrate on studies. To qualify for the PhD, I had to pass four 3 hr exams in four days in each of the branches of chemistry. On my first try in January, I failed all but one. If you passed three they counted otherwise all had to be taken over. After that I worked very hard, read all the under grad texts used at UConn and passed on the third try. My main problem was that I didn’t really internalize being a chemist, so after each course in undergrad, I would forget what I had learned. When I studied for the exams at UConn, I integrated all the knowledge in my ego that accepted that now I would be a chemist.
In my first two years at UConn, I was still very religious, often attending daily mass in the chapel near my dorm. One afternoon, I had a strange experience. I went to attend a forty hours adoration where the communion host is displayed in a gold monstrance (holder) and I suddenly realized that I didn’t really believe that bread was God and I didn’t think God would want me to. After that my faith all fell apart. I soon found many other reasons not to believe, based on Biblical Criticism, incompatibility with Evolution and the Church’s bad role in History. Although it was a terrible and guilt ridden experience, I had the belief that I had to do what I thought was right. I felt a great burden lifted from my life. All my associates were not going to Hell, life was worth living and my opinions were important. I kept my loss of faith a secret for several years, but eventually had to come out of the closet. When we had our first child, we decided we could not raise him in a religion we thought was not true and not good. I didn’t want to burden my children’s minds with all the nonsense and guilt that I had to deal with. I had to tell my mother. It was the worst experience of my life.
I recently read an editorial by a priest in a Catholic news paper bemoaning the fact that a recent survey revealed that 60% of Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence. To me it’s hard to see how they can be Catholic. I guess it was all a big joke and I didn‘t get it. I can only figure that they didn’t have the good Catholic education that I had.
About five years ago my old mother visited and I had to take her to church. The priest’s sermon was on the Real Presence. With all that I knew, I was still surprised when he said, “ And for anyone here who doesn’t believe that Christ is truly present in the bread and win, there is the door.” I was tempted to make a dramatic exit, but couldn’t hurt my mom any more.
After I gave up religion, I was much more self confident, I stopped stuttering, my work improved and I ended up getting the PhD and doing a thesis which I can still look at and think that at one time in my life I was truly excellent. I got a good job in a major chemical company and am now retired after 35 years. Although I never made the big discovery, I did develop about 20 products, enough to make a positive contribution , and ended up with 24 patents and about forty publications. One lasting problem, which I attribute to my Catholic education was the inability to effectively deal with supervisors. I feel that my career would have run smoother if I had better relations with management.
On the personal side, I am still in love with and married to the girl I met after I started working , have two great sons, both doctors and now four grand children. I guess I derive my contentment from a faith in life and a faith that we all have to follow our vision to do what we see as right.