More mud from TV to nuns

How did I manage to go through Catholic schools from kindergarten to a master's degree without meeting a cruel, sexually repressed or mentally ill nun, brother or priest?

According to the media, that's about the only kind out there. "60 Minutes" recently devoted a segment to the Sisters of Mercy who ran orphanages and homes for children in Ireland in the 1940s and '50s. According to some of the residents, who are now adults, the mother superior at one home was running a Nazi prison camp, complete with tortures and terrors, and maybe a death or two.

I have no way of knowing if the women are telling the truth, exaggerating reality or passing out the sort of fibs fishermen exchange. If they are telling the truth, then they deserve an apology from those involved and maybe the right to sue for damages.

But if there were nuns in Ireland, even ones in the particular home in question, who treated children decently, we didn't hear about them on "60 Minutes." Instead, Ed Bradley, the newsman, volunteered that he had heard as a child that nuns "beat the devil out of you."

Other side

Is that all he knows about nuns? How come I never encountered one like that? How could I go from kindergarten through eighth grade, also in the 1950s, and never see any child mistreated? I did see the sisters teaching children to pray, paint, add, find Hungary on a map, and play kickball without becoming junior Dennis Rodmans (or is it Rodmen?).

On a radio show a few weeks ago, the host got to talking about nuns. He couldn't comprehend how a woman could go her entire life without having sex. His co-host wondered why a person would want to sleep on "those wooden mattresses."

Wooden mattresses? What year is this? Have they ever met a woman religious? Ever talked to one about her life? The co-hosts profess to be very tolerant people about all sorts of lifestyles, but there's one lifestyle they can't comprehend: being a sister. Is it that difficult to find one to learn something about her vocation?

The hosts also like to refer to all priests as child-molesters who "bother" altar boys.How is it that my parents welcomed dozens of priests as overnight house guests and I was never once touched?

Stereotypes

Flip around the cable channels and you'll eventually land on a stand-up comic who's an ex-Catholic. Invariably, he or she talks about Catholic school and being belted by a brother or sister. The audience laughs as if everyone in the room had the exact same experience.

How is it that I went through high school being taught by brothers and college being taught by priests without ever being slapped by anything more than an eye-opening idea?

Was my experience so unusual? Was I lucky enough to run across the only Ursuline nuns, Holy Cross brothers and Jesuit priests who were exceptions to the rule? Were they so busy helping me learn the multiplication tables, the reasons for the rise of the Greek empire and the arguments for the existence of God that they didn't have time to whack me over the head with a ruler?

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I have no doubt that some clergy and religious were mean; a few were violent; a small percentage were sexually abusive. The same sentences could be spoken about secular teachers in public schools, Boy and Girl Scout troop leaders, drill instructors in the military -- and moms and dads.

The media have a right and responsibility to uncover such wrongs, whether they are in the Church, the military, government or (although this rarely gets done) the media. But it would be nice, every now and then, for the good majority among priests, brothers and sisters to get a mention.

Consider this my mention.

(05-29-97)

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