Catholic schools.

cg - I would be interested to hear if you feel you could go straight to god to worship without the 'middle man'. I am sure there are plenty of good catholic schools and good catholic people but it is the organisation and the power it wields over people's lives that gives cause for concern. What would it take to make you turn away from the church?

Greatnan - there are many Catholic parishes now without a full time 'middle man' as you put it, mine being one of them. I'm sure that many Catholics feel as I do that the church as an institution is no longer the only conduit to God and although tempted many times to turn away from the institution, I can't see myself ever turning away from my underlying faith. Does that make sense?

It makes sense to me, cg, sort of. I guess I just went a step further: I found I didn't need any faith and in fact felt a certain sense of relief, even release, when I fully realised that not having any faith in the supernatural didn't make a scrap of difference to how I would live my life.

I agree with Bags - loyalty to a church can be very powerful and it must be heart-breaking to be betrayed by the very people you have respected and trusted.
I think most people would agree that a belief in the supernatural is not a prerequisite for good and decent behaviour, nor does a lack of faith imply lack of humanity.
If any adult can suspend disbelief and get comfort from their faith I hope nobody would be critical.

I don't know how I missed this thread. I put my hand up to being yet another lapsed Catholic, although it's always there lurking in the recesses of my brain. Once a Catholic it's hard to shake it off. I still say a Hail Mary or two or three when I'm rigid with tension on flight take off ridiculous I know but that's brainwashing at an early age for you! However, when I cast my mind back to some of the nonsense attached to my schooling I can't believe I sucked it all up. I particularly remember being aged 7 and with my classmates having a trial run in preparation for our First Holy Communion being told by some half crazed nun when having an unblessed wafer put on our tongues "swallow it down without biting it, otherwise you will be biting Jesus' legs off". I can't believe they got away with feeding our minds with such utter nonsense and I have to say that this sort of claptrap did shape my decision in not sending my own children to a Catholic school. In my early years I felt in a constant state of terror having to learn all that Catechism word perfect. My mother, a devout Catholic until her death, told me that her school instilled the same sort of fear in her as a child and I remember saying, "but you still subjected me to it", she kind of agreed with me at the time that Catholic schools weren't always great, Of course once you start to rationalise it as you get older it starts to occur to you that it could well be a load of drivel designed to control you by keeping you in a permanent state of fear. However, having said that, my husband's grandchildren from his first marriage go to some high profile London comprehensives which are excellent and it almost made me wish we had sent ours to them when I realised how good they were. Of course their attendance at church is mandatory and once they get to a certain age it's just another thing to argue about, and particularly hard to make them take on something that you don't altogether believe in yourself. If I were to praise the church about anything though, I would say, as others have stated, my mother's church proved to be a great support and social network for her once she was widowed.

baNana - well, the nuns had me till I was almost 16 but I had no problems with rejecting it outright by the time I was 12. Of course, I couldn't get into any sensible debate about it - I would have been expelled.

Yeah know what you mean Greatnan, any argument was quashed with "Don't be so bold as to argue with me", Oh and we weren't allowed to make eye contact either, downcast eyes at all times and can you believe we even had to curtsey to them, the nuns that is. The final straw for me was when I started to read about the Spanish Inquisition in my teens, and I began to realise just how bad a history the church had, that was it for me. This was of course before all the child abuse scandals hit the headlines.

We lived in Sinagapore for 2 years in the mid seventies courtesy of The Royal Air Force, and two of ours, ages five and six went to school there. They learned about all religions and thoroughly enjoyed various festivals. It gave them a superb insight which they have carried with them all their lives.

I am empathise with cg on this one, I feel very much as she does. I think I was lucky that my dad was very down to earth, probably years ahead of his time for an Irish Catholic, and poo poohed (Sp?) a lot, of what we now think of, as the sillier expectations/rules of the clergy/church at that time. However, I still consider myself a Catholic, not a regular church-goer, but non the less able to worship direct with the Man above without the necessity of the 'middle man' all the time. I have to say that the actual 'middle man' can make a huge difference to my attendance at church! 'Nuff said.

Priests and nuns should be allowed to marry it's ridiculous, all this "brides of christ"nonsense they are after all only human,although it wouldn't make any difference to the ones who sexually abuse kids, as this is what they like, then you've got the priests who have" housekeepers ", I wasn't allowed to recieve communion at my Mums requeium mass, as the priest said I was living with a man whom I wasn't married to, I had been with him for 20 yrs, and had 2 kids, he was terminally ill so we weren't even having a sexual relationship, but it's ok to move child abusing priests away, give them treatment, and forgive them, then they'll be able not only to recieve communion but give it to others, it's a joke!

grannyinmypocket - do you think you lost much by not receiving communion? I agree that there is blatant hypocrisy in the church.

In the Celtic church nuns and priests did marry! It's only when they agreed to hold to the Latin rite that celibacy came in. It was never a tenet of the early church . Came in at about400ad I think! Council of Nicea?

I think it was to protect church property - wives and children might want their share!

I found a wonderful bit in a book by Mark Haddon and though some might enjoy it - so here it is........

"One person looks around and sees a universe created by a god who watches over its long unfurling, marking the fall of sparrows and listening to the prayers of his finest creation. Another person believes that life, in all its baroque complexity, is a chemical aberration that will briefly decorate the surface of a ball of rock spinning somewhere among a billion galaxies. And the two of them could talk for hours and find no great difference between one another, for neither set of beliefs make us kinder or wiser."

He then mentions several religious atrocities and goes on to say....

"Religion fuelling the turns and reverses of history, or so it seems, but, twist them all to catch a different light, and those same passionate beliefs seem no more than banners thrown up to hide the usual engines of greed and fear.
And in our single lives? Those smaller turns and reverses? Is it religion which trammels and frees, which gives or withholds hope? Or are these, too, those old base motives dressed up for Sunday morning? Are they reasons or excuses?"

Greatnan, no I don't suppose I did, it was just that I was devastated at losing my mum, my cousins were all here from Ireland they were going to confession so as they could take communion, priest said he wouldn't hear my confession, it's just the principal of it, I suppose living with a man's a MORTAL SIN, but child abuse is ok if you're in a position of trust, and kids are orphans , or helpless and vulnerable. I'm not going back and I'm not having a priest when i die.

My family know I want a secular funeral when I eventually die, as does my husband.

I have met some lovely catholic priests but they have ALL now left the church. Some just left in order to live a normal life: one, a bishop, got chucked out for being compassionate and sensible. There was one priest I couldn't stand: nasty, old fashioned, unfriendly.....he's still in the church of course.

Catholic schools round here use ordinary teachers, not nuns and brothers these days. They don't even care if teachers are living in unmarried relationships or are gay. They simply want the best teachers.

Some things do change for the better.

We had one lovely nun for a time at my junior school - Sister Patricia. She would give us a hug if we fell over, and wipe our tears if we were bullied. She told us very sadly that she was being moved to another school because she was allowing herself to get too fond of us and earthly love detracted from the love she had to give to god. Unfortunately, she was too brain-washed to object. She would have made a lovely mother.

I'm sure there are some brilliant nuns and priests, it's just the catholic churchs' cover up and sweep it under the carpet policy that is so infuriating, and the hypocrisy, the ones that do wrong are "forgiven" and it ruins it for the genuine good ones, but it's the whole religion for me, I don't know if it's still the same, but we were brainwashed as kids and threatened with hell and purgatory!

I remember being at mass when I was very young , and after the priests sermon he announced "if you're going to put less than a pound in the collection plate, don't bother

Sorry, sent that too soon, "dont bother you need help yourself" it was said in an angry, sarcastic way, this was in the sixties when a pound was quite alot of money, I'm sure he offended alot of the congregation, who still flocked back the next week like sheep! Most of these people were miners with big families to provide for, good for the priest, in his nice house next to the chapel, with housekeeper provided,he'd need the money to keep him in the style to which he had become accustomed, well the church would!

We had to take school fund money every week and the head nun would read out our names and contributions. My sister and I were usually at the bottom of the table. The ones who brought most were usually taken into a special room and given extra coaching for the 11+, however bright or dull they were. Sometimes, the extra push got them to grammar school, and they couldn't cope and would be back at the elementary school within a term, where they stayed until there were 15. By then, it was too late for any child from a poorer home, who might have benefited from the extra help, to get to the grammar school.
The richer kids also got the best parts in the nativity play - my sister and I were always 'children' or' shepherds'.
The whole school and the church were places of humiliation for the poorer children.

Not Catholics but elder daughter went to Catholic school. It suited her as she is academic and they put emphasis on academia. She left with excellent GCSEs. She said she knew the Rosary better than the Catholics! She is pleased she went there and felt she got an all round education, she is now a teacher herself; not in a Catholic school though.

Greatnan, with ours it was Green Shield Stamps, we could buy our way out of detention with them, I believe they amassed so many they eventually got a car with their stash. We also had to buy our regulation shoes from an expensive Russell and Bromley type shoe shop in my home town. Apparently the nuns received commission from this shop on sales to pupils. However, the shoes were not very robust so several pairs were required over the school year. After a couple of years most mothers got fed up with the outlay and many of us bought shoes from Freeman, Hardy and Willis or Dolcis. Detentions were handed out on a regular basis for the wearing of non regulation school shoes and this is when the Green Shield Stamps came in handy! Either way it was a win win situation for them!

I think I got a good education in my catholic primary and junior school! I learnt mental arithmetic very well. How to read fluently and with understanding. A little history and geography, my memory skills were very well trained by learning 'the bible passage' every morning. A skill that has stayed and helped through all my life!
The nuns were lovely and very kind! The 'Sisters of the charity of St Vincent de Paul' I can't thank them enough for my early education !

Greatnan what an evil school you went to! I was lucky to go to schools in West Yorkshire that were very egalitarian (years 1949-1961), especially the grammar school, where great pains were taken to ensure no-one knew which kids were on free school dinners etc.

It seems that all schools can be good or bad, but to be really evil, that takes religion (to misquote Weinberg)