Oh come on Constance! Either you were a very saintly child at school that you never upset the nuns, or you have a very selective memory!
I was at school with the nuns (Dominican) for 12 years during the late 1960's and the 1970's.

In that time several girls in my class were smacked at least daily behind the legs or on the hand by rulers wielded by the loving nuns.

Their favourite thing was throwing the duster at us while they remained seated at the front of the class. Many is the time I copped it in the face or head!

If we were really 'bad', we were sent to the Principal Nun for a sound smacking with a thin wooden rod. She used to go quite red in the face with the exertion.

If we went home and complained to our parents, they would punish us again for upsetting the nuns!

I am not saying that ALL nuns were violent- but I would say at least 75% of them were at my school.

And as for the Brothers at the boys Catholic college near by.... that was even worse for my brothers!

While we certainly expect more humane behaviour of those who are ostensibly 'people of God', let's not forget that corporal punishment was once a significant part of schooling life - religious or otherwise. I'm too young to speak from experience, but my parents assure me that a good whacking was a regular occurrence in their strictly public schooling lives.

Like I said, though - we should expect better from those who claim to be the keepers of the faith and the righteous ones in our society.

Well Suze, your experiences were different to mine as you obviously hold a lot of hate and seem very emotional and appears you have not recovered, therefore your one-sided view of Catholicism. Obviously, the boys got it worse with corporal punishment. But as Otonoko states, it did not only occur in religious schools, and they were different times then.

Constance <"Well Suze, your experiences were different to mine as you obviously hold a lot of hate and seem very emotional and appears you have not recovered, therefore your one-sided view of Catholicism."

I don't hold hate the nuns and priests of my childhood Constance, just disappointment that a group pf religious people who put themselves out there as pillars of society and as 'God's handmaidens' should treat children the way they did.

The other public school staff of the day did not represent their 'merciful, forgiving' God while dealing with the school children in their care.

And I am not alone in my feelings, not by a long way.

Maybe you look at your days with the 'lovely' nuns through rose-coloured glasses?

"But as Otonoko states, it did not only occur in religious schools, and they were different times then."

This is exactly the kind of denial that Catholics have used to justify their sins, everything from the crusades to the inquisition to their part in the Nazi holocaust.
How anyone can think that the Catholic church has in some way been a positive for mankind is beyond me.

And what you are doing, Paul, is demonstrating the kind of denial that so many use to somehow absolve themselves of the brutality that is humanity. Cast all of the blame of past wrongs onto the Catholic Church, or Muslims, or Jews, or communists and you can wander around feeling all innocent because you're not one of them.

Here's the reality: the Catholic Church, being made up of a body of humans as flawed as everyone else, is historically as guilty of child abuse, torture, slavery, deceit and outright brutality as the rest of mankind. Corporal punishment in schools, rapes and cover-ups, inquisitions and wars - they have been there for it all, as have non-Catholics. The only thing that distinguishes us and makes us suitable whipping-boys is that we have pretended for so long to have the moral high ground.