`I tell my story to seek forgiveness'

National Catholic Reporter, August 11, 2000 by Julie Wokasch

Taught to mete out punishment to children in culture of denial

With a crystallized glaze on snow, the January thaw was in full swing. For Victor and Michael, so were wet, mushy snowballs. I was called to Sister Principal's office and informed that I was to spank the boys with a rubber hose. Sister Principal proceeded to teach me how to position a sixth grade boy over a chair and then "spank them where God intends boys to be spanked." I was obedient and whipped Michael and Victor with the three-foot section of garden hose. Within an hour the pastor, a huge man, was at the classroom door asking for Victor and Michael. Twenty-eight students and I listened in horror as the priest slammed the boy's heads together.

At dinner that night, the seventh grade teacher reported hearing the two victims talking. It seems I spanked harder than Sister Principal spanked. All eight of us laughed. I lost a part of myself that day.

Years later, I ask myself: Had Victor and Michael received the hose from Sister Principal on other occasions? Had the pastor cracked their heads together for other mischief? Did the sisters, truly enjoy the physical and psychological control they inflicted on their young students?

At the time, I was still in formation in my community. I knew in my heart that what had happened was not right but had no idea how to change the situation. If I questioned the principal I risked expulsion from the community. If I continued to physically abuse my students, I sacrificed my integrity. I didn't know I could say no.

Nearly 40 years later I remember only three names from my first class. The other name I remember is Kathy.

Kathy didn't pay attention in class. Kathy didn't get her homework finished. Kathy was dying of leukemia. Sister Principal withheld this information from me. In my lack of experience, I spent nine months totally insensitive to Kathy's needs. I didn't know about Kathy's illness until two months after school recessed for summer. That's when Kathy died. Although the other sisters went to her funeral, I, as a junior professed sister, was not allowed to attend.

The year 2000 is a time to forgive and seek forgiveness. I tell my story in this millennium year to seek forgiveness and to address the denial around the abuses perpetrated by some men and women professed to be "religious."

Victor, Michael and Kathy, I am so sorry!

Four years after Victor, Michael and Kathy, I became the principal. I spent considerable time in recruitment for the school, and I began to hear more stories of abuses of children by sisters and priests -- including verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

Before going into my own classroom, I'd been placed with a "master teacher" for three months. I saw her hit first grade children so hard that her handprint remained on their faces for hours. I believed the parents when they told me their stories. They would say, "Do you think for a minute I'd put my child through what I've experienced? In religion class we were taught to love our neighbor in one breath, and in the next second, Susie got slapped across the face for saying what she truly believed."

Perhaps the greatest horror stories were shared when I worked on an Indian reservation. Adults recalled in their childhood being locked in dark closets for speaking their native language; being whipped for crying out of loneliness for family members; and of nuns and priests standing as witness as little children signed away their small land allotments to crooked land sharks and bankers. They told of trying to run away from the boarding school, only to be caught and have their hair cut in punishment. Our Indian brothers and sisters remember priests providing them alcohol to get signatures for tribal lands and for the bodies of young women. It is common knowledge on reservations that John or Mary is the child of a priest who once worked among them. Who paid child support to these mothers?

Talking to priests and sisters, I have heard stories like mine. Many priests and sisters were not much older than the children they were teaching. Most men and women sent to reservations were taught there was great merit in "converting the savages." And they, like I, were afraid to say no for fear of the discipline that could be imposed. Many felt caught in a system over which they had no control.

However, I do believe that some of these men and women got a perverse pleasure from the violence they inflicted. From a powerless position, a sense of control over those who are vulnerable may give a person a sense of power. In a system where "blind obedience" is overtly or covertly taught, where individuals feel their lives are out of control, people will try to control the environment outside of self.

When will we make amends?

One of the sisters in the house where I spent my first year of teaching had been my Saturday catechism teacher when I was a child. She was funny, a good teacher and someone we trusted. I wanted to grow up to be just like her. Here the dream of a vocation was born. I wasn't in the convent one month when she propositioned me. To convince me it was OK, she spoke of a fifth grade girl and what a great lover she had been. This professed religious preyed not only on the young, vulnerable women in the community, but also on small children.