Catholic Schools Quotes

“But St. Mary's was still a prison. Those boys who entered with reasonably secure psyches might receive some valuable training and survive well enough. But for the others -- the neglected, sick, half-wild incorrigibles who had been thrown in as a last resort -- it represented nothing less than a death camp of the spirit. If you could meet them halfway, the brothers probably wouldn't hurt you, and conceivably might help. But if you were unable to meet them halfway -- if you didn't even know where halfway was or how to get there -- only a miracle could allow you to emerge a whole person.”
― Ken Sobol, Babe Ruth & the American dream

“Explaining the Jews in a Catholic school when you’re Irish is like having to explain your country’s foreign policy while on a vacation in France. You don’t know what you’re talking about and no matter what you say, they’re not going to like it anyway.”
― John William Tuohy, No Time to Say Goodbye: A Memoir of a Life in Foster Care

“Morse found it nerve-wracking to cross the St. Jude grounds just as school was being dismissed, because he felt that if he smiled at the uniformed Catholic children they might think he was a wacko or pervert and if he didn't smile they might think he was an old grouch made bitter by the world, which surely, he felt, by certain yardsticks, he was. Sometimes he wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't even a wacko of sorts, although certainly he wasn't a pervert. Of that he was certain. Or relatively certain. Being overly certain, he was relatively sure, was what eventually made one a wacko.”
― George Saunders, Pastoralia