Voiceless Hermes

[Hermes]

Hello everyone, and thanks for your responsive posts.  Hee hee, I love you Hops! LOL

Yes, Bella.  I agree there with you.  I did feel a bit of pressure, but I can take it! 
However, the reason I did not open up much, till yesterday about the school thing, is that I felt that, again, I might be seen to be kind of "religion bashing"  (as it was a religious convent school).  You can imagine after that kind of brain-washing (or attempted brain-washing in my case), you never want to hear the word religion again.   I think that is understandable.  I respect everyone's rights to their beliefs, be these orthodox, unusual or no belief at all.  But someone else's beliefs do not have to be mine.  And even if I had no belief at all, that does not make me some kind of suspect person to be avoided at all costs.

Anyhow, I sure made up for those school-days since LOL.  And I have my own beliefs, my ethical standards, which I hope are fairly sound, and an enquiring mind.

Best to you all
Hermes

[Hermes]

Hello Hops:

Yes, it was pretty grim, but rather than abandoned, I felt pretty mad a lot of the time. 
One of the many awful aspects was the lack of respect for privacy.  Our lockers, beside the bed, were "inspected" arbitrarily, our intimate things gone through.  Once a week, we had to write home, (everyone had a writing case, by royal decree!), but we could not put the letter in the envelope and seal it until first read by the nuns.  So, the letters were stilted four liners, at best. 
Physical punishment, as in the strap, was not used, or at least I never experienced it.  I do remember though when a couple of girls, in the chemistry glass, splattered some water or something on the newly painted wall.  A minor problem you would think.  They were punished with the strap, which was bad enough in itself, but they were shamed by being marched in in front of our class (we were in a senior class then), and the strap applied to their hands in front of us all.  Horrible.  All of this was accompanied by the usual drone of god's punishment bla bla bla.  It makes my stomach turn even now.

Hermes

[Hopalong]

ugh ugh UGHH

Speaking of no boundaries!

dirty evil sexual little girls, we must invade their privacy.... horrible.

I would grow up to be a very guarded person. Yikers.

Poo on that whole anti-human system.

Hops

[Certain Hope]

(((((((Hermes)))))) that sounds absolutely awful... far beyond the strictness I knew in parochial school.
We got "the strap" on the backside, but not into the senior class years...
and the most shaming admonition I recall was directed toward the girls, who were told that we were responsible for "putting evil thoughts" into the minds of the boys if we did not follow the dress code re: modesty.

I'm so sorry you experienced that. None of it is a bit representative of the loving God I've since come to know.

Sincerely,
Carolyn

[Leah]

Hermes,

I had the birch across my hands, for talking, during week long retreat. 

And, another time, I was dragged by my hair to the punishment room, for speaking up for my friend.  (Afterward, the nun was packed off somewhere, she was always in a rage, with a red face, all the time).


"The Magdalen Laundry Sisters"

and

Kathy O'Beirne's life story ......... in her life story book "Don't ever tell" they used the strap.

gets me on my soapbox!!

Love, Leah

[Hermes]

Thank you Carolyn.  

I have to smile, as I remember the enormous emphasis put on "evil thoughts", "immodesty", "the awful consequences of "keeping company" with a man/boy, .... all of which I fear only whetted our febrile imaginations regarding those exotic creatures: MEN!

I hope I can risk a little joke here: "The mother superior is haranguing the convent school girls on the assuredly disastrous outcome of hanky panky with men.  She finishes by saying: "" Imagine girls, a whole life destroyed just for one hour of pleasure"".   At the back of the room, Mary Jane O'Donnell sticks up her hand. "Yes my child"?  says mother superior.  Mary Jane says: "Please Rev. Mother, how can you make it last that long".  

That joke used to do the rounds at school. LOL.

Hermes

[Hermes]

Yes, Leah.  I agree. Absolutely appalling.  The Magdalen Laundries, and you know it was not so long ago that the last of them was closed down. 
In case anyone wonders, they were called after Mary Magdalen (the sinner!).

The dreadful, dreadful aspect of those laundries was that many of the girls (in trouble) who were sent there, had been made pregnant not by some boy they met out and about, but by a brother, or a father, or other male relative.  The church had such a grip on the country that people were afraid to speak up, to denounce or defend.  No wonder Ireland has turned to being a secular society.

I sympathise with you, and know how you must have felt.  More than the actual strap or birch, is the shame of being struck.

All the best
Hermes

[Leah]

(((((((Hermes)))))) that sounds absolutely awful... far beyond the strictness I knew in parochial school.
We got "the strap" on the backside, but not into the senior class years...

and the most shaming admonition I recall was directed toward the girls, who were told that we were responsible for "putting evil thoughts" into the minds of the boys if we did not follow the dress code re: modesty.

I'm so sorry you experienced that. None of it is a bit representative of the loving God I've since come to know.

Sincerely,
Carolyn

Hi Carolyn,

Yes, if a catholic girl, got "into trouble" or was raped, then it was only the girls fault, she was the hussy, and so, the parents would pack the girl off to the Magdalen Laundry where the girl suffered, therein, with the strap plus more.  The baby was taken off the girl and sold, by the nuns, to rich people.  They made a lot of money.  Kathy O'Beirne's book exposed the whole sham. 

30,000 women, during the 20th century alone, suffered, being institutionalized, for life,

until the doors of the Magdalen Laundry closed in 1996.

Too late for thousands, however, a few found their voice, and spoke out, including Kathy O'Beirne.

Shocking, but truth.

Love, Leah

[Leah]

Hermes,

My N Dad cannot understand why we have all turned our backs on the RC Church.  He even got his priest to threaten me.

The priest told me on the phone, that he was going to write to the P--e and have me excommunicated !!!

To which I replied " can I have a certificate please "

The fact that I renounced RC twenty years ago, makes no odds to them, but, it makes a heck of a difference to me.

Love, Leah

[Certain Hope]

Hi Carolyn,

Yes, if a catholic girl, got "into trouble" or was raped, then it was only the girls fault, she was the hussy, and so, the parents would pack the girl off to the Magdalen Laundry where the girl suffered, therein, with the strap plus more.  The baby was taken off the girl and sold, by the nuns, to rich people.  They made a lot of money.  Kathy O'Beirne's book exposed the whole sham. 

30,000 women, during the 20th century alone, suffered, being institutionalized, for life,

until the doors of the Magdalen Laundry closed in 1996.

Too late for thousands, however, a few found their voice, and spoke out, including Kathy O'Beirne.

Shocking, but truth.

Love, Leah

Thank you, Leah, for sharing this... I didn't know.

Such sad, true stories of rigid legalism and corruption.

Growing up Lutheran (both church and parochial school), my religious training was full of instruction re: the vile practices of the RC church, vis the sale of indulgences, etc., and the numerous challenges which Martin Luther had to overcome in order to bring the Reformation to pass in Germany...
and yet I saw just as much hypocrisy and lack of grace in this supposedly grace-based environment as anywhere else in the world or history...

and so, I have no taste for religion, not in any form.

Thank you again.

Love,
Carolyn

[Leah]

Hi Carolyn,

Organized religion was never original.  Man made for a patriarchal system.

I don't do religion, at all.

Personal relationship only, as in being born anew, per the gospel of John, as a non-conformist.

I care not about being exterminated!!!

Love, Leah


PS >> As in my thread, last week I think, I will not be controlled from the grave by my NDad, in buying indulgences each week from a priest, and, made to sacrifice my life to prayer, for the purpose of his soul, being lifted from the nether place (with radiators!!).

[Certain Hope]

Leah,

I only wish that my head had been out of the clouds enough to recognize that years ago, but the combination of home life with my mother and the rigid straightjacket of parochial school effectively squashed my ability to think freely and.... well, basically, create any original thought. Thank God that's over!

Our version of the Lutheran denomination was the strictest of its sort, long before the days of the more liberal synods available today. No pants for women, who must wear head coverings within the sanctuary, all male leadership, etc, etc...
and to this day, my dad is totally sold out to this nonsense.

Love,
Carolyn

[Leah]

Carolyn,

That's like the Brethren, they are strict, with code of dress, and also, women not allowed to speak
until they have left the church building.  Still, today, in 2008!!

Well, my NDad sent someone to put me right, but, I saw him right, off my doorstep! I refused him entrance into the sanctuary of my abode.

Wonder if the priest has sent that letter off?   No sign of my certificate, arriving in the post.   

Love, Leah

[Leah]

For reference;

Books:

>  Kathy O'Beirne -- "Don't Ever Tell" :  Magdalene Laundries

>  Paddy Doyle -- "The God Squad"

>  Mary Rafferty -- "Suffer Little Children:  The Inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools"

>  Frances Finnegan -- "Do Penance or Perish:  Magdalene Asylums"   


DVDs:

The Magdalene Sisters

Stolen Lives


Website:

Justice for the Magdalenes  http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/  and tracing stolen babies sold for adoption.


Leah

[Certain Hope]

  Leah

Your certificate was lost in the mail, perhaps?  

I know that there are corresponding troubles on the other side of the legalism coin... where the ultra liberal religious folks fail to confront where confrontation is absolutely required...

but at least those people have a chancce to come to know God first as the loving Father and Saviour He is, and not as the angry old man "up there", just waiting to catch them in some fatal flaw.

Love is so much a better motivator than fear.


...and these "Brethren"    sound like a nightmare!

Love,
Carolyn

P.S. thank you for the reference list, which I see here now.