Catholic Schools To Be Honored. This Reporter Is Not Happy

(The Politico)  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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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. Fitzxpatrick, you are lucky the statute of limitations has expired or you would be in the Big House.

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.