Catholic bonds

Just received an email note of discussion about the new pope from my friend Ann. We're the same age and Catholic, so that's always created a bond between us with plenty to talk about. Ann attended IHM (Immaculate Heart of Mary) in Coeur d'Alene and received a thorough dousing of Catholic teachings, including guilt.

My Catholic education, on the other hand, consisted of two weeks with the IHM nuns early every summer after they'd finished up the school year with Ann and her friends. They'd come to St. Joseph's in Sandpoint and give us a crash course in the Baltimore Catechism.

They directed us through our preparation for the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. We also learned and practiced the Rosary during what we called "Sister School." While other little kiddies rode their bikes up and down the streets past St. Joseph's and pointed at us poor Catholic unfortunates, we spent six hours a day learning church ritual. We knew, however, that if we were good, a big picnic with hotdogs, Darigold ice cream cups and all the strawberry pop we could drink awaited us at the end of the two-week session.

Not all of us relished going to Sister School. In fact, my brother Kevin and his buddy Sean Garvey ditched it one day, disappeared and had to be rounded up by the cops that evening. They were hiding under the bleachers of the old Sale Yard on Oak Street. Sean (who even had a priest for an uncle) just didn't want to be there, while Kevin had a hole in the seat of his pants.

The next day Sr. Ricardus (whom none of us has ever forgotten) made an example of the two runaways for all the rest of us who might consider escaping God's teachings. I think that incident may have provided a welcome dividend for the sisters' never-ending lesson plan for instilling healthy lifelong guilt among the budding Catholic youth.

The part when Sr. Ricardus chastised Kevin for setting such a poor example in front of his helpless little sister made my ears perk up at the time. It was touching in my 6-year-old mind that the nun cared so much about my welfare.

We also had Catechism on Saturday mornings during the school year with volunteer teachers like Bernie Seitz (who later found Jesus somewhere else and left the church), Pat Strohmaier and Catherine Bopp. I must also mention that the nuns rounded up volunteer civilian teachers for Sister School too. I always consider one of 'em, Bobbie Brown Hugenin, as my first real teacher cuz she taught me some Bible stories when I was just a 5-year-old.

I still think my dear friend, Ann Gehring, received more Catholic education than I at IHM, but they must've failed a bit in the guilt department because she never seems to flog herself quite as much as I do on almost a daily basis. Maybe the nuns felt they needed to inflict a lot more intensity into our short-term indoctrination of that interminable, nagging knowledge that we must have done something wrong, even if we weren't even remotely connected with a situation.

On my trip to Chicago and Kalamazoo this past week, I felt like I'd landed in the Irish-Catholic bread basket of America----with Catholic churches and schools everywhere and talk among cousins and old family friends dealing with First Communions, Pope betting pools and the age-old topic of what sins you conjured up with your friends to reveal within the Confessional.

Mary Sullivan Martin of Kalamazoo told me she always checked with her buddies before going in and starting her "Bless Me, Father's." She also revealed to me that in her Confessional, the time passed since the last confession was ALWAYS one month, even if it might have really been six.

Somehow that all sounded familiar. Even as an adult, I always checked with my sister Laurie for what she was going to say and felt like I'd really scored an ace when I used my mother's catch-all phrase, "and I was 'uncharitable' to family and friends five times." And, I don't believe I ever stretched my intervals between visits to much beyond six months, even when they may have been a year----or two.

Of course, when we revealed such tales to the priest, we always capped it off with how many times we'd lied, always adding one more to the roster than the previously planned round figure. I wonder if the priests caught on when I'd say I'd lied six times.

Yes, there are many aspects of my religion that connect all my Catholic brothers and sisters. And, we, as Americans, continue to perpetuate the guilt by questioning some long-held rules and regulations of our Church. As faithful or as rebellious as we are, however, I could never imagine being anything but Catholic because those nuns instilled in me another couple of rules I never forget:

Who loves you? GOD LOVES YOU.
Who does God love? GOD LOVES EVERYONE.