{"id":3294,"date":"2008-01-22T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T11:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/power-mad-nuns-hellbent-on-beating-an-education-into-us.html"},"modified":"2008-01-22T11:37:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T11:37:00","slug":"power-mad-nuns-hellbent-on-beating-an-education-into-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/power-mad-nuns-hellbent-on-beating-an-education-into-us.html","title":{"rendered":"“Power-mad nuns hellbent on beating an education into us”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the annals of opinion journalism, I don’t think I’ve encountered anything quite as idiotic as this<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) has offered a resolution that will be taken up the by the House this week (H.Res. 916) honoring Catholic schools.<\/p>\n

The resolution, which is co-sponsored by 43 other lawmakers, congratulates America’s Catholic schools for producing “students strongly dedicated to their faith, values, families, and communities by providing an intellectually stimulating environment rich in spiritual, character, and moral development.”<\/p>\n

But for many survivors of a Catholic-school upbringing, the memories are not so great. Sure, we can read, write and do ‘rthmetic (Note: I did 11 years in Catholic schools), but we also suffered under power-mad nuns hellbent on beating an education into us.<\/p>\n

Sister Marion of Resurrection Grammar School in Rye, N.Y., was once such unindicted criminal, as was Sister Theodosia (btw, does anyone else but mean know why nuns change their names once in the convent? They needed aliases!) and Sister Luke. These were horrible women who should have never been let anywhere near young, impressionable innocents. One nun told me that as soon as you thought of a sin, it was as bad as if you had committed it. I still think that I murdered a lot of people, which never happened. Or at least you can’t prove it.<\/p>\n

High school wasn’t much better. I had Irish Christian Brothers as teachers. I saw one brother literally pick a kid up by his nose once. That had to hurt.<\/p>\n

But worst of all were the lay teachers at Catholic schools. They had a license to whup ass (I think they got a special dispensation from the pope or something), and they used it. Mrs. Fitzpatrick, you are lucky the statute of limitations has expired or you would be in the Big House.<\/p>\n

So I think the House should reject this resolution and launch an immediate probe into Catholic schools nationwide. I will volunteer my testimony as a starting place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly, he has issues. <\/p>\n

You can read another view of Catholic education right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the annals of opinion journalism, I don’t think I’ve encountered anything quite as idiotic as this: Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) has offered a resolution that will be taken up the by the House this week (H.Res. 916) honoring Catholic schools. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}