51. Irish Catholic Sex (2 of 2)

The Catholic Academy was run by a group of seemingly stern nuns who were quite strict with  the girls, but warmer toward the boys.  As an example of the  female plight at the Academy, the accepted hemline for the heavy wool jumper uniforms at that time was somewhere around the knee and anything shorter was evidently a major offense.  Snap inspections in the classroom would begin when the Principal Nun burst into class and directed all the young women to kneel down next to their desks to show that their hems touched the floor.  Backs straight, young ladies, no crouching!  If she was wearing a sweater, a girl might surreptitiously undo her side zipper to get an extra half inch of hem.  But mostly the girls relied on rumors of coming inspections and set their hems using only  pins so they could be adjusted downward when an impending Hem Raid was suspected..  During my entire time in high school, I never saw a girl with a permanently sewn hem.

The nuns looked aside as boys and girls dated, but “going steady”  was practically forbidden.  Despite the proscription,  boys and girls together did what you know they did and to signify their steady status a girl wore her boyfriend’s class ring  suspended on a fine chain about the neck outside of her uniform, but only after school hours.  During classes it was worn under the blouse against the skin so as not to attract the attention of the nuns. 

Use of one’s time was strictly regulated too.  In addition to absolutely no study periods,  after-school activities often revolved around one religious activity or another.  For the girls, there was the Sodality of the Holy Virgins of the Order of Mary,  honoring a group of  French nuns who were said to have been martyred for their faith in the 1400’s.  But some sources say they became dissolute and  fell into disrepute, an excuse for the boys to call Sodality members the Part Time Virgins.

For the twenty or so senior boys, there was the Society of Thomas DeTragia, a 15th century French altar boy killed by a crazed Protestant Englishman.   Attendance at Tuesday after-school meetings was mandatory.    The STD’s, as we called  ourselves, got together in a room for the stated purpose of  conducting a Chapter of Faults, and I’ve explained before that it’s an old monastic custom that resembles an open confession of one’s misdeeds to your peer group.  We were allowed to meet by ourselves because no nun was crazy enough to chaperone us.  Meetings would begin with all of us standing around in a circle in semi serious prayer for no more than 30 seconds.  Then someone would pull out a pack of cards and some would play while others hung out the huge old Victorian windows and smoked.

I have no idea how many couples “did it” in my Catholic high school.  I didn’t, but thank goodness thinking about it couldn’t get you in trouble.  There were two unwanted pregnancies that I was aware of and I do remember girls in my class secretly visiting a young woman who quit school to have a baby.  But I’ll bet STD’s …  the real ones … were contracted far less frequently than they are among today’s high school kids.

There’s an aspect of my adolescent stirrings and my Catholic high school education that I often forget.  Riding herd on our hormones and immature behavior  were the stalwart nuns as they tried to help us make the best decisions for ourselves.   These women were true radicals in medieval dress.  Independent-minded and very well educated, some from wealthy backgrounds, they devoted their lives to working in hospitals and jungles.  But they also lived in communities in eastern factory cities and pulled working class children up from the old neighborhoods to a worthy life through a decent education.    They worked tirelessly and put up with a lot.  Strict with the girls, they taught us boys to respect our fellow women students and their academic achievements and accomplishments.  School organizations had just as many female officers as male, providing an early taste of an equality of the sexes.

And they had another goal.  As Sister Mary Joseph said to me once in an unguarded moment of exasperation when George and I faked a fall from the fire escape, “You are the worst kid I ever taught.  How am I supposed to get you into Heaven?” 


Roy Orbison - My Prayer