The Sunday Reflection #99 - Why I think the Nuns at St Vincents School were wrong!

 I went to St Vincents Roman Catholic Priary School in Mill Hill from the age of 4 until I was 11. The school was run by the Daughters of Charity, or "the Nuns" as we knew them. Imagine my surprise to learn late in life that The Daughters of Charity are technically not Nuns at all. Orders of Nuns make a life long commitment to Jesus, whereas the Daughters renew their vows every year, so they are technically not nuns at all. I wish I'd known at the time, but it'd probably just got me clobbered with "the bat" by Gabsie (AKA Sister Gabriel, the headmistress).

My memories of the Nuns were mostly rather negative. When we were naughty, we were invited to stand on the stage during morning assembly. We had to stand with our hands on our heads, which is rather painful after a few minutes. I recall at the start of one term, I guess I was about 8 or 9, we were called into assembly. Gabsie made an announcement that has haunted me to this day. She said "I attended a conference of Catholic Nuns who are teachers in the holiday. We have been informed that we are no longer going to make naughty children stand on the stage with their hands on their heads". We all cheered excitedly. This was great news. She then announced "In future, all naughty children will stand with their hands up in the air, as this is far more painful". It was. At the time, it seemed perfectly normal, but can you imagine a conference of Nuns debating the best way to torture naughty children?

The Nuns would say some very strange things to us. One of the things that I recall, although not the context or how it came up. She said "You must love Jesus with all your heart, before anything. You must love Jesus so much that if a soldier put  a gun to your childs head and told you to renounce Jesus, you would say no, even if it meant your baby got shot, if you don't you won't go to heaven". This really troubled me. I doubted that I could do that. That made me feel like I was a very bad person. Now I am an adult and I have children, I know exactly what I would do in that situation. The thing is that whilst it troubled me at the time, it does not now. Not because I don't want to go to heaven anymore, I rather like the idea. The reason is that I do not believe that such a renunciation made under duress would count for anything. I happen to believe that as a parent you have to put your children first. There is a biblical text where the Lord asks the Prophet Abraham to murder his child. Abraham complies and is just about to perform the deed, when God relents and the child is spared. It is one of many texts in the Old Testament that I find difficult. I simply can't believe that a compassionate God as I understand, would put anyone through such mental anguish. Such things are why I could never become a priest (well that and celibacy). 

However, I also recognise that some the text such as this are more symbolic than factual. Should God exist in the form which is described in the Bible, then I think it is fair to say that He is beyond our comprehension. The Bible describes Satan as the Father of Liars. Clearly if Satan exists, then he is also beyond our comprehension. Then there is the issue of mental illness. I have a little voice in the back of my head (for want of a better description) that tells me I should help Old Ladies to cross the road and do other things that are good. I try and listen to it. But what if that little voice, that I always was lead by the Nuns to believe was my Guardian Angel, started telling me to kill people or blow things up in the name of the Lord? How could I know whether it really was Gods will, or whether Satan had booted out my Guardian Angel and was whispering devilment, or more likely, I was just suffering a psychotic episode?  I am always highly nervous of people who's actions are 'guided by Gods will'. 

I treat that little voice as an advisor. But the decisions are mine and if a voice tells me to do things that are wrong, bad or evil, I would simply ignore them. When George Bush said the Lord had told him to bomb Iraq, I felt deeply uneasy. I would actually feel more comfortable if I thought Bush was lying if he said that. If he really believed that God told him to do that, I have to ask whether his 'little voice' has been hijacked or whether he was mentally ill. Of course, compared to the current encumbant in the White House, Bush seems like a paragon of virtue. Does Donald Trump have a 'little voice' in his head guiding him? 

I was four when the Nuns started 'guideing and shaping me'. I am sixty four now. Rightly or wrongly, they made me what I am. The morality and values I have were drummed into me by them. Some of it, I have rejected. I've come to realise that torturing naughty children is a bad thing. I've also realised that decisions taken under duress are not things you should be judged on. I've realised that texts as found in the Bible are not without their problems, but you have to view them in a rational way. The Ten commandments say "Thou shalt not kill", which is a fairly unequivocable statement and I think that settles the arguement. 

For many years I felt a lingering anger and resentment towards the Nuns who ran the school. I felt that they had not really had the wellbeing of the children in their charge at heart. Times were different and things like corporal punishment were accepted by society as the norm in schools to maintain discipline. We were brainwashed into thinking that without it, schools would descend into anarchy. The fact is that they were wrong. There are many problems with our schools in the UK, but these are caused by lack of funds, not lack of clobbering. The thing I find it hardest to forgive them for, though, was the fact that they convinced me I was a terrible person, because I would spare my own child in an impossible situation. Of all the things they were wrong about, that is the one they were most wrong about.

You may wonder what got me thinking about this. Well, as I do most Sundays, I was at mass this morning. During the Gospel, Jesus tells the Religious elders that "Prostitutes and tax collectors will enter Heaven before they do". He was berating them for paying lip service to faith, but not actually living the morality they preach. It made me think of the Nuns. They wore robes, so we all knew they had a religious calling, but they'd make seven year old kids stand on a stage for fifteen minutes with their arms in the air and tell us we were going to hell because we might publicly renounce our faith if given an impossible choice.

I will finish this with one final piece of advice. Should you be a devout Catholic and find yourself in the situation the Nuns described, spare the child and then go to confession at the first possible opportunity. I am sure that Jesus would forgive you, even if the Nuns wouldn't!