Nun of the Above

I attended Catholic grammar school, back in the day, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I guess in the interests of accuracy, it would be more correct to say I survived Catholic school. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being unkind or a cur when I use that verb to describe my time from mid-year third grade (I'd been in public school and there wasn't an instance when my classmates ever let me forget this for years) through graduation from the eighth grade.

I had Mrs. Hilge in third grade and Mrs. McGarry in fourth (when I went, Catholic schools had very dedicated, but not unionized, lay teachers, almost without exception, women, and everything was taught in the same classroom). I assume we had a nun for religion, because that makes sense, but I don't recall names. Or have suppressed them ;-)

As a kid, nuns bewildered and frightened me just a little. I'd gotten the explanations about those in the religious orders, men and women, and understood the sacrifice and dedication but there were mechanical questions I had, but I hadn't realized I had them. For instance, the habits with the head dresses that many orders wore, in this case, the Sisters of Charity. Rumor from well-informed sixth graders was that the nuns had no hair; they had cut if off to show their love of Jesus.

I never understood the connection-I mean, c'mon, Jesus wasn't a hairdresser so what was the point (but I'd forgotten I was in a religion that made eating meat on Friday a sin for dozens of hundreds of years, so logic need not be present) and after my next door neighbor Neil, who had also transferred in mid third grade to Catholic school, got caught looking up the back end of the habit's head dress, to prove/disprove that 'no hair' thing, I feared for the Scientific Method (he had to stay after school for an hour every day for a month and inside for recess after lunch. Today, his parents would contact the ACLU and poof! the punishment would vanish.).

I used to try to explain to my non-Catholic wife that, when people speak of the Catholic Church, they need to specify and stipulate as to which one they mean. There's the church the Pope and Cardinals have (lots of ex cathedra pronouncements and worries about world peace); there's the one the local archbishop and the monsignors run (that one seems to worry about building funds an awful lot); there's the church the local priests have (which seems to concentrate on CYO basketball tournaments).

And then there's the church the nuns have-all the children have school uniforms: boys have white shirts and school ties; the girls have white blouses and plaid skirts, always touching at least an inch below the back of the knee when they kneel down. And all schoolchildren were persuaded to love The Lord, with a straightedge ruler across the knuckles of any hand of any child with doubts.

My wife smiles occasionally at my insistent belief that Evil is real and tangible in the world (I always cite North Korea, or Chuck Woolery on Love Connection, and rest my case), but she doesn't smile when I speak of the different variations of the Catholic Church because she, too, believes.

I remembered all of this while reading about a priest and theologian in Rome who was organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Church and to fight the stereotypes so many of us have about them. About 48 hours after he announced the contest, he then announced there would be no contest (talk about a Higher Power intervening?) The contest was to be called "Miss Sister 2008" and I regret I don't have the good padre's blog site to share so we could have all shared some nominees such as Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn and Sally Field. And, of course, who could forget Sister Mary Clarence? Deliver us from evil, amen.
-bill kenny