How come everybody I know who went to a Catholic school

[edhopper]

tells me how cruel and brutal the Nuns were.

Why were the women who devoted their life to serve God so mean and unloving?

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I'm guessing the nuns were promoting "obedience".

You start with obedience in the classroom and it morphs to obedience to "Our Lady" (Mary, Mother of Jesus), Jesus, and The Church.

http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=5245

You can't have faith without obedience.

To specifically answer your question, in Catholic schools, obedience is learned through fear, apprehension, and respect, not so much through trust, security, and intellectual acceptance. That's why *some* of the nuns seem imperious, detached, and sometimes cruel.

[RKP5637]

2. Indoctrination of students, being in command. Some love authoritarianism as a way of life. n/t

[edhopper]

5. But must it be so

brutal? The Nuns sound like truly unhappy and angry women.

[RKP5637]

11. Likely their childhood experiences bred them to be truly unhappy and angry women. And they

acted that out on students.

I've always thought of Catholicism as a disciplinary institution. I had a friend way back that always went to Mass. He took me once, neither of us could understand the priest and spent most of the time getting up and sitting down. I asked him why do you do this, you don't even know WTF is being said or why you are doing it. His answer, because that's what you're supposed to do and not ask questions. Yet another of my endless WTF's in life.

[flakey_foont]

3. Attended Catholic school for 7 years

The accounts of the brutality and sadistic behaviours of the nuns are true. Why were they so mean? Never asked them for fear of getting a whoopin', and being told how I had a one way ticket to Hades. In the case of the nuns at the school I attended - I felt it was due in large part to their own upbringing, and was their traditional way of teaching - "Spare the rod and spoil the child; ah, hell, just beat the little brats anyway."

Wish I'd have had these kind Sisters instead

https://www.facebook.com/InTheKnowByAOL/videos/838422236313559/

[Sanity Claws]

4. I think it is the era

People who went through Catholic Schools in more recent decades don't say that.

The Catholic Church and its schools were pretty mean in the 1950s and 1960s. It was reflected in their dogma - eternal damnation for dying in mortal sin and what was a mortal sin was fuzzy to say the least; unbaptized babies could not enter heaven but were condemned to limbo.
The Church has left some of these dogmas in the dustbin of history. For example, limbo is not even taught anymore.

Another issue was that in the 1950s and 1960s, the schools were dealing with the baby boom. This meant over 60 kids in a classroom. The only way for the sole nun in a classroom to keep order was through a liberal use of the yardstick and pointer.

As for the size of the classes, I speak from personal experience. I have an older brother, born 1952. He once had 72 in his class. I was born in 1956 and the highest number of students in my class was 68.
This was in Queens, NY, part of the Diocese of Brooklyn.

[Demit]

8. My first grade class had an even one hundred kids.

I still have the class picture. Amazing.

[Siwsan]

6. Some most definitely were

I remember a couple who were truly lovely, nurturing women. And I knew some who were most definitely cruel.

Back in the day when they wore those heavy black habits and headwear, I imagine that they were very uncomfortable. I remember seeing the bands of the headwear the nuns I knew, cutting into their foreheads. They modified their habits to a shorter dress and much lighter headwear, and later they abandoned the attire for 'civilian' clothes.

Maybe it's just my perception, but they seemed to become much more 'human' when they abandoned the old habits.

[img][/img]

[wasupaloopa]

7. In my school not all nuns were not cruel. They were strict and I think

it was the fear of sin. We had every action measured as to how veniel or mortal it was in terms of sin and God's punishment for it.

Nuns wanted everyone to be in the state of grace meaning no spots on our soul. Spots are mortal sins. You can't be in the state of grace if you have committed a mortal sin and haven't confessed it to a priest yet.

So nuns did their best to keep you from committing a mortal sin and their way of doing that was to enforce a sort of discipline by various means of which some were mean like hitting your knuckels with a ruler.

But it was all in the interest of getting you into heaven.

Of course when you were out of their control it was hoped you would maintain the lessons they taught you.


Most of us are recovering Catholics

[trotsky]

9. They say that Catholic Schools are one of the primary sources of atheists.

Given how many stories there are like that, it's not surprising.

[Cartoonist]

17. Works both ways

Some of my fellow prisoners are still devout. They still support the same parish. The nuns however, are long gone. I guess they didn't get enough of a share from the collection plate.

[shraby]

10. Would the requirement of having to get up in the middle of the night and pray for a while

contribute to their short patience?

[sharedvalues]

12. Selection helps. Selecting for not wanting to have a family.

But that era is over.

[Freddie]

13. Husband went to Catholic school

Tells the story of the classroom nun (late 60’s) who slammed a kid’s head against the blackboard so hard the kid blacked out. Ambulance was called. Next day the kid was back in school. No police, no lawsuit, nothing in the news, apparently the parents were perfectly fine with this. Times have changed, for the better.
Needless to say our kids did not go to Catholic school.

[Soxfan58]

14. Lack of sex

[lunasun]

26. Some were obvious couples at my school so not always the case . Yet closeted and in a convent

depending on the church is not same as a free and affirming marriage. The sex may have been there but far from an ideal life .
One couple I heard stayed together into old age although they got moved to a different city
Edit to add I saw one nun break 2 fingers on a 4-5 th grader they could be beasts

[Mrs. Overall]

15. In the late 1970s, the nuns at my Catholic high school were amazingly liberal,

kind, and they set me on a path of interest in social justice.

I think post Vatican II (late 1960s), there was a huge change in the lifestyle and teaching methods of American nuns.

My family was Republican, but during my senior year of Catholic high school, I registered as a Democrat.

I maintained a relationship with many of my teachers and the majority of them were active opponents of the death penalty and nuclear proliferation. They worked in soup kitchens and were arrested in various protests. Around 2010, they formed a group within their convent for lesbian sisters--giving them a voice and platform.

For context, this is in the San Francisco area, where the Catholics tend to be much more liberal.

[Hangingon]

16. I went to 8 years of Catholic grade school graduating in 1956.

Nuns were stern. We were taught discipline in each class. It was not as bad as we made out. By the time my children went to parochial school, the nuns had changed with the times. The habit was on the way out. I thought the nuns had mellowed, but my kids thought they were still strict. With the movie Blues Brothers, it became popular to refer to them as Penguins. My grandkids saw the nuns were principal and assistant. Lay teachers were the norm. Our parochial school now has no nuns.

[irisblue]

18. late 60&early 70s. Catholic Grade School

Polish Catholic, the 6 nuns were refugees from Poland. They lived through horrific awful things, both from Germans in the camps(Sr Albertine had numbers on her left arm) and post war times with the Russians in charge. When those women finally got out of Eastern Europe, there had to be some kind of work for them. Catholic school teaching it was,at least in the school system I was in, teaching credentials were relaxed.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

19. Went to a Catholic boarding school

The nuns were great. One was my English teacher and a big reason why I do what I do.

Just to toss in another side to the story.

[Binkie The Clown]

20. I went to Catholic school and the nuns were cruel and brutal to me, and humiliated me at every turn.

One day, in fourth grade, after having my knuckles smacked with a ruler and being locked in the coat closet for half the day I simply walked out and told the nuns I was never coming back. My parents, who were getting tired of hearing the nuns complain about what a trouble maker I was, and of hearing me complain about the "wolves in witches clothing" who beat me and picked on me, transferred me to public school the very next day.

Surprisingly, I got along just fine in that environment. And quite miraculously, even though I changed nothing about my own behavior, I was somehow transformed and suddenly ceased to be a "trouble maker".

On Edit: My younger sisters both went to the same school and thought the nuns were wonderful. It's been my observation, from a limited sample, that the girls in class got along fine with the nuns and the boys were treated badly.

[Act_of_Reparation]

21. There weren't many nuns at my school.

The principal was an Ursuline, but she was the only nun in regular contact with the students.

My teachers were all sub-par, barely qualified hacks who more than made up for the powerlessness inflicted upon them by church by exerting power over the children.

My sixth grade teacher made fun of an Italian kid's name so viciously his parents pulled him out of the school.

[mountain grammy]

22. My first husband is left handed

Nuns tried to turn him into a righty. He remained a left hander, and meaner than shit. Guess the nuns got what they wanted.

[rurallib]

23. Well, I may be the exception that proves the rule

12 years of catholic schools and I can honestly say, outside of one knuckle rapping with a ruler administered to a friend of mine around 5th grade i neither saw nor experienced any brutality or cruelty.

There were a couple of nuns who seemed to be a bit off kilter mentally and many who ran strict discipline in their classrooms and took no guff. But they did not physically abuse anyone - just a trip to the principal's office.

Believe me, I would have been a candidate for some abuse. I was a bit of a wild one all the way through school. I was, however, sexually abused by one of the priests.

Between myself and my 2 older brothers i don't think any of us were abused or saw - or for that matter even heard of - abuse in our school. We had mostly nuns teaching us up to 9th grade.

We lived in a midwestern university city of around 30,000. Don't know if that would make a difference.

[Pope George Ringo II]

24. It's true, but I'll say this for a Catholic school:

Nobody, but nobody can lay a guilt trip on me. Those women were professionals, and whenever some amateur tries it I have to struggle not to break out laughing.

[RussBLib]

25. My wife got expelled from Catholic School at age 6

For asking too many questions! She's often told me how mean the nuns were. This is early 1960's.

I'll see if I can get her to contribute to the thread.

[lunasun]

28. They hate you if your smart and despise the fool...

- Working class hero
John Lennon

[JoeOtterbein]

27. Don't forget Sister Cathy. They were abused by the creeps who ran the church then.

I went to Catholic Schools in Baltimore for 11 years. Many of us were abused by a criminal enterprise that included law enforcement as well as many evil priests.

Maybe many of the Nuns tried to seem to be mean and "un-attractive" to priests in order to protect themselves from the evil in their own mists.

Sad.

[JNelson6563]

29. I didn't.

I am an atheist now but grew up Catholic. Our nuns were actually nice. Kind even. We were lucky.

[Doreen]

30. My boyfriend went to Catholic school up until

9th grade. Well, he said he got a lot of spankings and glared at a lot. He also has ADHD so that might explain some of it. He said he was a handful. He went through most of his Catholic school in Germany and I did not ask if there was a difference between the German Nuns and the American Nuns. Some of his stories are so funny.

[RandySF]

31. The kids run up to the nun at my son's school and hug her.

[Squinch]

32. Went to 2 Catholic schools run by 2 different orders of nuns. The first group was very harsh but I

think well meaning. I think now that the harshness came from the fact that the classes were usually 35 or 40 kids and they had no equipment or assistance and no particular training for handling that kind of challenge.

The second group was very educated and included some really wonderful teachers.

[Glamrock]

33. I did Catholic school from K-12

I don't remember any mean nuns.

[drray23]

34. i went to catholic school.

They were not cruel, just strict and forcing you to work hard. I dont recall an instance of cruelty, just hours spend in study rooms with a nunn watching over.