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Children aren't born bullies, they are taught it by their teachers....parents, religious leaders, school teachers etc etc. As far as I am concerned the problem isn't religious freedom, it's religious persecution and any religion that promotes it should be told to change or leave the country. It's hate mongering with an invisible god's permission and until there is proof that the god exists then no religion has any legitimacy anymore than a used car dealer.
In the Catholic church all that is required is for the priest to believe the child will be brought up as a Catholic or in Christianity. However is some areas the priests have made their own 'rules' because the Vatican of the past has been very hazy about the exactness of this practice. The new Pope is just making it more clear.
It hit me around Grade 4 that there was something very wrong with the things they were teaching us, and it sounds like they're still at it.
I too am a Catholic school survivor. It hit me though about grade 7. We had a poor family in the parish. Good people, hard workers, very dedicated to not only work but to the church. At school we use to collect clothes for the kids (there were 8 in the family). One day at mass I remember looking at those kids (the ones younger than me) wearing old clothes that had been collected and mittens that did not match and down the isle was a man wearing gold trimmed vestments and holding a gold chalice or monstrance at an elaborate altar in an elaborate and expensive building with his new Cadillac parked in the driveway of his home which had a housekeeper and a gardener and a private cook and he represented a lie. I said to myself...........there is something definetly wrong here!
and face their attackers as most will back down
I hated it when they backed down. Took all the fun out of the lessons.
I have always felt the best way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them
My first school was a public school. No problems. When we moved I ended up at a new school. You're not easily accepted in a new school, especially if they have their own little cliques. My grandmother knew what I was like and she asked me to do nothing because it was not only new school but a Catholic school and she was very religious. So I backed off from my regular self. I took the insults and the ganging up, but one day enough was enough. Two kids Julian Ferigi and Keith Findlay were the leaders and they paid for it. Findlay I took care of at school on the basketball court, he still has the scar today. Ferigi I took care off after school on the way home in front of Eds Variety store. Never had a problem after that. Although I understood where my grandmother was coming from with the religious thing I still had to do what I had to do. That's the way I have always been since and I won't change. Interestingly, when she found out about the two other kids I remember I was in the kitchen when she got the call from school. I thought I was due for a lecture. Instead she said nothing, just gave me a pat on the back and went on to her cooking.
By the time I got to Grade 7
Thinking back, it seems to me the priests (two of them from the church next door) were more interested in the nuns (two in particular). The didn't wear cassocks because they were fashion conscious.
