Well, most nuns were not Ingrid Bergman, but I know almost no one who went to parochial had such an experience. Besides, you have to put matters into a frame of reference. Because they went to Catholic schools, they did not go to public schools, and in public schools corporal punishment was pretty much the norm as late as the early sixties. It was not unknown unusual for boys to be beaten by men teachers with their fists.
I lived in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. More than half the children in the neighborhood were Protestant and my close friends. None ever told me about any abuses in their government schools that would come even close to what I saw with my own eyes and suffered personally in Catholic schools.
However...I have met **one** very good Catholic and he is colleague that I respect and admire. He is near my age but did not attend any Catholic schools.
I hope you notice that I frequently defend the faith of Catholicism on these threads.
I would be thrilled and delighted if all the CINOs in this nation would truly be converted to their faith and fully practice it. Imagine how much more prosperous, safer, and refined in every way our nation would be. It would be a true blessing.
However...I testify that attending Philadelphia Catholic schools in the 50s and 60s was a hellish experience. I seriously pray that the nuns who were responsible for the abuse, or ignored it and said nothing, have repented. I have hope that I will make it to Heaven to be with God and hope that I will see these nuns there as well.
I have asked my mother ( born 1913) about her Catholic school experiences. She has nothing but warm feelings about school both elementary and high school.
I think the difference is that when she was a child the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia was on the very edge of the city and was bordered by farms and dirt roads. There were so few children in the local parish school that they only had 4 classrooms occupied. Two grades were combined. There was only one high school for girls in Philadelphia and her father paid tuition for her to attend. She was the only girl in the neighborhood who attended high school and graduated.
I suspect that huge numbers of baby boomers overwhelmed the nuns. Those who should have been retired weren't. I had 4 different nuns for second grade. My mother told me that they had “emotional breakdowns”.
My mother died a few years ago at the age of 98.