Memories of Catholic school?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I am always amazed at all the bad stuff people say about Catholic schools.
1949 to 1961 in Tulsa OK.

Early years we did Mass every day, dropped off to weekly in high school depending on which Catholic High School you were at.

Had a great Pastor the whole time I was there. Got a great education. Got some physical discipline that I needed pretty bad.

Prolly had 5 total lay teachers in the 12 years.

Never had any teaching of others being unsaved or looked down on.

Uniforms for the girls came in during high school.

Had a lot of friends who went to the public schools and they had nothing I wanted and much I did not want.

We got to do many things, took trips and in general got the best education I was capable of …

Feel sorry for all the bad experiences you all have had. My Catholic upbringing was nothing like any of the ones you see around here on the SDMB that cry about how bad the Catholics are. I was never taught all that ridged stuff. We had priest who could and would explain stuff, Nuns who had many PHD’s and were excellent teachers too boot.

Been around several different orders of nuns and also had Christian Brothers in my senior year. Smart folks for the most part.

Some were really great educators.

I am so glad I had the up bringing I did because all the ones I hear about in threads like this make me glad I’m not filled that that much resentment and angst. I am simply amazed you all survived.

I have two Uncles that are priests.

Been an alter boy even as an adult when needed.

I don’t practice but I don’t have any problems with my past or future.

IMO, the problems started when the schools had to start raising the kids because the parents had stopped. Not what schools are for nor are they good at it.

IMO, schools with a couple of nuns for looks and the rest are lay teachers, it is not a Catholic school. But those days are over and I’m glad I was where I was when I was.

YMV

42

Prayer and MEDICATION? Wow, I missed out in public school!

43

Stations of the Cross memory- My buddy George was the altar boy, holding the giaint candle, and lit his bangs on fire.

Good times :slight_smile:

44

Come on all these former alter boys and no one talks about flicking matches in the sacristy or drinking the sacramental wine. Please, I know I wasn’t the only one…was I? Anybody remember being tipped as an alter boy for serving at a funeral or wedding? I still get nostalgic when I hear the little bells ring during mass or smell incense.

I was in Catholic School for K-8. Given that my family moved every 2-4 years it was very hard to make friends. I attended 4 different schools in 8 years. With the exception of St. Adelbert’s in CT I found the schools to be nice and comforting places.

Funding was always tight. Most of the schools didn’t have enough athletic equipment and didn’t have any sports teams like the public jr. high schools. At St. Adelberts the only playground equipment were the ubiquitous red kick balls, equally good for dodge ball.

At St. Hubert’s outside of Chicago, there was nothing other than some jump rope. The 7-8th grade boys played “touch” football with a tennis ball. That school had the worst uniform ever, brown corduroys and gold golf shirts. Can anybody beat that? That school was my favorite. They had the coolest priests and three or four great nuns.

Everywhere else the uniform was the common blue pants white shirt for guys. In 5th grade I remember that I was taken out of class and sent to the principals office because I accidentally wore an off white shirt (I’m color blind and didn’t even know I owned and off white shirt.) They wanted my mother to leave work and come get me. That didn’t go over well with mom.

Of course the culture shock of going from Midwest and East Coast Catholic Schools to a public high school in Southern CA in the early 80’s was almost lethal.

45

Eight years of Parocial Schjool. I was an Altar Boy (the last generation who memorized the Mass in Latin – which encouraged me to study it on my own) and a Patrol Boy.

There are lots of books by Former, Current, and “recovering” catholics – the “Growing Up Catholic” series, the book and casette “Born Catholic, Can’t You Tell?”, and the John Powers books about groweing up Catholic in Chicago (“Do Black Patent Leather Shes Reflect Up?” and others).

We had better teaching in Grammar and Math that the Public School kids. Some of the nuns were really science savvy. Nevertheless, the Science teaching was frequently abysmal. So was language class – I got eight years of first-year Polish (we were a largely Polish community). Art class was kinda cool, though.
Uniforms – plaid jumpers for girls; white shirts (preferably with embroidered Holy Spirit in gold on one pocket), grey pants with maroon piping for boys. Clip-on tie with school insignia. Nobody wore sneakers.

Washable blue ink cartridges in fountain pens. No ball-point pens allowed.

Line up for everything.
Crowning of Mary outdoors in May.

I still have all my Treasure Chest comics. They really were amazingly well done – great serialized stories, short pieces on history, weird science, home crafts, Rube Goldbergian inventions. There was a series on how-to-play-sports that appealed to even as unsportloving an individual as I was. There were also bits on the Bible and Saints that were well done. It was general and religious education without being obsessive or over-preachy, and was genuinely entertaining. And the comics were only 10 cents, even when newsstand comics were 12 or 15 cents. Eventually they tried to raise the prices while cutting the frequency, but it didn’t work. I think they were priced out of business.

Frank Borth was great. He could tell a heckuva serialized kids’ strory. I learned how to draw from the “Learn to Draw” series he did in TC (and which they later collected and reprinted on its own as a separate comic – the only “special” that I know of that they did). Hard to believe he drew the notorios “Phantom Lady” briefly, back in the early 1950s.

46

I need to have my highschool Latin teacher sign up as a guest so he can tell you HIS Catholic school stories. Most of the good ones are from elementary school. Since our Latin classroom was at the far end of a very long hallway, he would tell his Psycho Nun Story Cycle once every couple of years. We would all have our books out to a certain page, and he would keep something up on the overhead projector that looked like work, in case another faculty or administration member knocked on the door.

One of my favorite stories involved almost burning down the church - by accident, of course. He and his friend (about eight years old) had cut class and were in one of the chapels with a lot of votive candles lit. His friend accidentally knocked over some of the candles, and the altar cloth caught on fire. Then the altar caught on fire. They ran. :smiley:

The Psycho Nun Cycle was quite long, and built up to the fantastic climax in which she accused the class of trying to steal all of the oxygen in the room so that she would suffocate and die. So, they all started breathing super-heavily (the better to steal her oxygen!), and she ran screaming from the classroom. Really!

47

Thirteen years of Catholic schools in Baltimore for me. I attended Saint Anthony of Padua school from 1960 - 1968. I had lay teachers in grades 2 and 4, Franciscan nuns for the other grades. I was a good student with some restlessness and respect issues, so I had some experiences with corporal punishment (hands, rulers, paddles). I think we went to mass as a group on the first Friday of each month, and confession once a month, too. We also did the Stations of the Cross, but I can’t remember how often. We wore uniforms, brown pants, tan shirts, brown ties for boys, brown jumpers for girls.

I attended a Jesuit high school, Loyola, from 1968 - 1972. We had to take a religion class each year, and we went to mass as a group a few times a year. When I started there, we had to wear coats and ties. Between my sophomore and junior years, the dress code and most other rules were dropped. The place reflected what was going on with the Jesuits at the time. While most Catholic high schools in the had school plays like My Fair Lady and Brigadoon, my school presented The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, I Never saw Another Butterfly and an adaptation of Yellow Submarine. We had a blast, but eventually there was a backlash and the school readopted at least the trappings of conservatism.

I went to Loyola College in Baltimore for a year before dropping out. My strongest memory of that year is serving on a liturgy committee (I played guitar at masses) with a Father Haig, who was the brother of Alexander Haig, Nixon’s chief of staff at the time. Father Haig looked a lot like his brother, which was a little disconcerting. Aside from my involvement with the liturgy committee, there wasn’t much of a religious flavor at Loyola College.

48

As **Cunctater ** said, it stands for Confraternity Of Christian Doctrine. Basically, if you went to public school, but wanted to be confirmed and receive Communion, you had to take after school classes, like Hebrew school. Unlike Sunday school, at least in my district, these kids had to go at least twice a week for an hour or two after school.

You must have went to one liberal Catholic school. I was a fat child, and I did not look good in maroon plaid, so believe me, it was not a blessing. As for being the youngest, I am guessing by your join date that I am younger than you, and the youngest in this thread, as it would have been illegal for me to join the SDMB in 2000. In fact, that was the year I had Sister Jeane. Good times, good times.

49

Maybe it was one rather liberal school (or schools rather, I went to about 4 different Catholic schools over my education). Like I said, from my experiences bouncing between Catholic and public in junior high it wasn’t all that different. The most different was the Christian private school I went to where we had bible study everyday first thing, after saying the Our Father and pledging allegiance to the Christian flag, and every Wednesday had a gathering where we met missionaries who told us tales of their travels and urging us to do the same.

No one wore uniforms (I can only think of two schools offhand that do so and one is a more military aimed public school). The dress code was basically neat, clean clothing in good repair with no hats or scarves and no showing of underclothes whatsoever (no spaghetti straps for girls, no droopy pants for boys). It wasn’t much different at the last public school I went to, but there they were even stricter. There was no unnatural haircolour allowed for example, but that school was different from any other schools in the city. I too was a fat child, a uniform would’ve at least meant I fit in a little more since my clothes (and interests) were never up to snuff and I was ostracized.

I never did get confirmed, though I did take first communion and that was done before my peers as we moved that year and Mom wanted me to have it done in a familiar church. It’s also been a long time since I was at a mass where incense was used, and I was an altar girl at one point (all I remember is my Dad glaring at me from the pews to sit still, which goes to show how long ago that was since Dad stopped going with us to please Mom before they divorced).

So yeah, fairly liberal I guess.

50

My sister was one of the first altar girls at our parish when the decision came down from Rome.

I remember the year that Cardinal Bevilaqua came to our parish (he was then Bishop of Pittsburgh, before he got the red hat and went to Philly), and there was a huge outrage because he wouldn’t allow women to participate in the ritual of the footwashing during Holy Week. We had always allowed them, and many were NOT happy.

Also, he visited our school and prior to that, Sr. Frances (the one I mentioned above) explained to us that his name meant “drink water”. At an assembly, he asked us if we knew what it meant, and for some reason, ONLY called on the boys. I was waving my hand like crazy, and all the boys were getting it wrong. Then he finally called on me, and I got it right! HA! Sr. was so proud!

Damn, I miss her. She died a few years ago and I wasn’t able to go to her funeral. She was the sweetest little old nun.

51

I’m a non practicing Catholic because of Catholic school. I had problems with the concept of Limbo and “pagan babies” when I was in the first grade. I couldn’t imagine worshiping a god who condemned innocent babies to Limbo because they weren’t baptised as Catholic.

Sr. Loyola Margaurite made us buy candy (for the poor) in second grade, then would swipe our candy by showing us the proper way to chew. I hated that nun!

I joined Girls Scouts and proudly wore my GS uniform instead of my school uniform once per week from 4th to the 8th grades.

In high school, we were allowed to leave campus to go to a local parish church to get ashes on Ash Wednesday. We would got to the Blue Bird Diner, eat, smoke cigarettes and then ash our forheads up and go back to school doing our best holy chick imitations.

Our school had a smoking section for seniors outside, but most of us preferred “216 bathroom” - I suppose the danger of getting caught added to the fun.

52

Grades 1 - 8; altar boy. I can still recite big chunks of the Mass in Latin.

No, I never flicked candles or drank wine, but I did get tips for working funerals. Unfortunately, I worked a lot more funerals than I did weddings (where tips were much more common). But it was cool getting pulled out of class to work a funeral.

Speaking of incense…I remember being mortified and terrified because I couldn’t get the incense lit. Inside the incense burner (thrucifer? churcible? something like that) we were supposed to light a little piece of charcoal, that the priest would then sprinkle incense on at the approrpriate moment. I couldn’t get the freakin’ thing lit…so the priest just went through the motions, as if he was spewing incense.

The school kids made a built-in choir, at any event big enough to require singing (Holy Thursday, confirmations, etc). So we were always trooping off to church to practice. I can still sing 2 verses of Tantum Ergo, and O Salutaris Hostia.

Biggest drag was the uniforms. Boys wore brown, baggy, corduroy pants; short sleeve white shirts; and green cardigan sweaters. Girls had to wear beanies to church (snerk. dorks).

The most amazing thing was that there were 50 kids in my class, all through school…and classroom discipline was never a problem.

53

Thurible.

I was born in 1959 and baptized Catholic, but ended up going to public school because my father disapproved of the Vatican II reforms. Otherwise I’d have stories of my own to share here. Dad and his sisters went to St. Procop’s on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio. The school (affiliated with the church of the same name) went up to twelfth grade, but wasn’t very academically rigorous at the sefcondary level, so Dad went to Benedictine before finally “going public” as he headed off to Ohio University. His sister Karen did go through St. Procop’s, and was a secretary (her lifelong job) even before she graduated. By the time Aunt Sharon was ready for high school, St. Procop’s only went up to eighth grade, so Sharon attended St. Peter’s – which has since closed – before following in Dad’s footsteps at Ohio U.

I’ve heard several stories of St. Procop’s, many centering around Sister Methoda, who was there long enough to teach both Dad’s father and – over forty years later – Aunt Sharon. As was customary at the school, Sister Methoda taught everything from history to sewing during her career, and she didn’t believe a ruler was just a measuring tool.

54

Ah, Catholic school. Attended grades 1 through 12. So many memories.

First communion: Attended with parents (who were/are atheists) and brother. Parents obviously hadn’t been in a church in AGES (they only sent the three of us to Catholic schools because they thought we’d get a better education). Brother (five years older than me) whispered and poked at me to “go up” when plate-passers went up to get plates. This was not the right time to go racing up to the altar. Schoolmates observed this keenly. I heard about it for a long time afterward.

Confirmation: A big deal; an archbishop came to do the job (at which point my mother – the ATHEIST – felt compelled to point out that she had been confirmed by a cardinal). The biggest deal, though, was about the dress you got to wear. My mother sewed a very nice one, some black-and-lilac floral number. I chose the name of an overseas cousin I liked, who in adult life stopped communicating with me because she blamed my divorce from my first husband for giving my mother a stroke. (Being very Catholic, she strongly disapproved of divorce.) I have not heard from her since – in eighteen years.

Compulsory confession: Around grade six, I decided to test whether things were kept confidential or not. In confession, I told the priest visiting the school that I sometimes felt compelled to steal small items from others’ desks, a complete fabrication. Things like erasers and pencil sharpeners. I was encouraged to stop this behaviour by the priest, and given a few prayers to say. Shortly after the priest had gone, our homeroom teacher (also the school principal, also a florid, wattly drunk) presented a short but loud warning: students were to keep close track of items in their desks – items like erasers and pencil sharpeners – because he’d become aware that there was a “THIEF!” in the room. Throughout his florid wattly diatribe he stared pointedly at me. I no longer wondered about the sanctity of the confessional.

Religious studies: We learned only from the GOOD NEWS BIBLE throughout elementary school. In Junior and Senior High, other faiths were tentatively and hurriedly described.

Compulsory sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted teacher: Grades four through six. This was a time-honoured tradition many of my classmates shared along with me, thanks to the principal’s willingness to protect the teacher by shooing away any who dared complain with absolute denial that such a thing could even be possible from such a wonderful, beloved family man. This was dealt with in a secular/judicial fashion much, much, much later.

Stations of the Cross: I did a rocking depiction of the resurrection with copious amounts of gold glitter glue in Junior High.

Rosary: Mine was lovely clear prismatic glass. A friend bought it for me, because of course my parents wouldn’t. They got very tense whenever I talked about religion, but I didn’t understand that they were actually atheists until I was an adult and my mother had a stroke. The visiting nun came by to pay a condolence call. “What kind of father would do that to his SON,” my mother hissed at her. I thought that was a little harsh.

Compulsory Mass: I enjoyed this, especially the ritualistic murmurings of various prayers and responses. To this day, when I can’t get to sleep, I’ll say a rosary in my head. The glass rosary is long gone; it went the way of my Catholicism.

55

good evening friends,

i was a cradle catholic. k-12 in catholic schools starting in 1958. in elementary school, mass was counted as our first class. i was also among the last of the latin speaking altar boys. my memories of my catholic school years are not very happy.

56

I went to Catholic school from K-12 and only graduated from high school nine years ago, but I don’t really remember anything about the catholic school experience… maybe I blocked out the memories. I have no idea how many times we went to mass or anything like that.

But now that you mention it, I remember the “Tremble… Tremble…” hymn. I always got a kick out of it, but never started shaking.
Ah good times, sort of…

57

jsc1953 writes:

I feel cheated. I’ve lost count of how many weddings and funerals I served at, and I never got tipped, unless you count the getting-out-of-school part.

Gorgonzola writes:

I find this incredibly creepy. With all the revelations over the past decade or so of such sexual abuse in Catholic schools, I’ve been shaking my head with amazement. I never experienced or heard rumors of anything of the sort. To read that this happened to someone on this Board is disturbing.

58

One thing I do remember is going to recess during a funeral.
Since the school was next to the church we had to be quiet.
Amazing to see 50 kids running around in silence.

59

Just remembered a “game” we used to play.
It was one of those tradition games to see how tough you were.
There was this old shed belonging to a neighbor of the school . the “game” took place in that shed.
First a younger boy (sorry no girls allowed) was captured from the school yard and carried into the shed.
He was tied up in a chair and questioned.
“Where were you on the night of the 4th.” Whatever his answer he was slapped.Don’t remember? Well maybe this will refresh your memory. SLAP.
Sounds like great fun Huh.
This went on until the school bell forced the game to be over.
I don’t remember but I’m sure there were threats to not tell sister.
This went on usually just after school began in the fall until there were no kids left or someone decided no one else was worth finding out how tough they were.
The real end of the game occured when a few of us 7th graders decided to see how tough one of the 8th graders was. A real struggle occured but in the end he was seated in front of us.
He was tough.
We never played the game during my 8th grade year. At least while I still attended school there.

60

On Ash Wednesday, after Mass we’d hang out in the girls’ room and compare whose ashes were darkest.

When I was in sixth grade, I brought in a copy of TEEN magazine and my teacher yelled at me for bringing in a “dirty” magazine (I think there was an article about teen pregnancy and a health advice column or whatever).

On the way to lunch, since the cafeteria was in the basement of the church, sometimes my friends and I would nick flowers from the rhodendrum bush in the convent yard. Heh.