I attended 11 years of Catholic school. As a Catholic student, I was required to attend the one hour religion class. Some kids went to the library during that hour. Sister Immaculata told us stories out of the old testament, mostly. Abraham sacrificing his son, Moses’ trek to the promised land, etc. I remember a few stories out of the New testament, the sermon on the mount, the marriage at Cana, the money changers in the temple, the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus. We were asked why we should not condemn the Synod of the temple or Pontius Pilate; she explained it all very well to us, impassionately. But she was a great story teller and kept us all at the edge of our seats. At the end of each story she would ask us about what we thought the moral of the story was and guide us in this respect. She used these stories to demonstrate what I later learned were morals which are quite universal. There was no hellfire and brimstone and I don’t remember any real hard doctrine, just what we would call today basic humanism. There was always a lot of talk about the poor and oppressed of other countries and, if there was any negativity at all, it was that we were quite rich and spoiled little Americans and we needed to know that everyone didn’t have it so good.
This was on the west coast. Later I learned from kids that went to schools in the northeast that there was a lot of official Catholic doctrine taught to them, a lot of hellfire and these people, especially the girls, ended up resenting and rebelling against it. In light of this, I’ve always said I was taught Catholic-lite. The stories were great and I used to go home and recite them word for word to my mom. The morals were universal.
Later, we had Jesuits. One was a practitioner of yoga and and an interpreter of Sanskrit. One of his best friends was Alan Watts. He taught both the religion class and comparative religion in my Junior year. Great classes. The hardline indoctrination was saved for Catechism, which was taught separately as an extra class during the years of first communion or confirmation, and on Sundays after mass.
Throughout my late primary and secondary years, critical thinking was emphasized. We had logic and the sciences, and the teachers went into Darwin thoroughly. Sometime in the sixties or seventies the church had accepted the theory of evolution and was able to integrate it into their religion. I think it odd that they would take a new lay teacher and throw them into a religion class, but I think also that’ like Sister Immaculata demonstrated, it can be taught effectively without the negative indoctrination that many people associate with the church.
I later ran into one of my fellow elementary school students as an adult. She was one of the people that went to the library during religion class. She said it was because they were Jewish and their parents sent them to the school, not to be good Catholics, but to get a decent education. I never knew they were Jewish, nothing was ever said. I don’t even remember other students questioning it. But there were a lot of things that were discussed one-on-one with individual students who had certain questions. This may have been one of those questions.
Most Catholics I knew who had gone through the Catholic school system were not associated with Catholicism later on and many were either agnostic or atheist, but many were very good at donating time and money to charitable causes, especially the poor. And they seemed to have an awareness of the larger world that others didn’t. So, to the detriment of the church itself, all that critical thinking may have hurt them, but they turned out pretty good people for the most part and because of that, I think the church succeeded more than it may realize.
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