The inside scoop on being Catholic

[luckless pedestrian]

I got sent to the principal more than not in parochial grammar school but the Pincipal was a nice nun who grew up with my Dad so she'd give me Oreo's and milk, tell me to clean my face up before getting back to class from crumbs and then say "try to behave this afternoon, LP"

I also was of the era of the infamous years of folk masses and guitar masses so I somehow lucked out that I did not get the lashing that TOFB received - though my brother did (but not sexually, but emotionally, very sad) so I don't blame him for not staying with it in his adult life

[Gedunker]

I lost a lot of respect for the Catholic church when the henchmen came down and closed my daughter's school tonight. Let's just say things could have been handled a lot better than they were. The fait accompli approach is really inappropriate when most folks had no idea the dire straits the archdiocese had allowed to build. Lots of anger, tears, and accusations. The parish is mortally wounded I fear.

[kms]

I lost a lot of respect for the Catholic church when the henchmen came down and closed my daughter's school tonight. Let's just say things could have been handled a lot better than they were. The fait accompli approach is really inappropriate when most folks had no idea the dire straits the archdiocese had allowed to build. Lots of anger, tears, and accusations. The parish is mortally wounded I fear.

I'm saddened and sorry to hear this. I think that they've forgotten that their schools are the farm team for vocations.

[Linda_D]

Latino flavored catholic here and yes, we have a lot of mother mary hanging out in my folks house and lots of prayers to god knows how many saints and yes, we got some crazy traditions to boot

We poles have got plenty of Mary devotion as well. My old house had a backyard Mary and I sure left her where she was! I would get a strange feeling hosing the bird poop and cobwebs off of her! Growing up, there was a family down the block that is half Mexican and half Polish. You know they were not escaping Mary traditions! I still run into them at the St. Patrick's day parade.

Guess who was picked by her 8th grade Catholic school class to do the "May Crowning" of Mary...that's right, me

We had a replica of the Grotto with a Mary statue next to the school.

Buffalo and especially certain of its very Catholic and very Polish suburbs were/are famous for having "Mary on the Half Shell" mini-grottos in yards -- front, preferable, but back or side were permitted as well. Most of these little grottos were commercial but most Poles being at least as frugal as any Scotsman, believed in "waste not, want not", so back in the 1950s-1960s, when these frugal homeowners remodeled their bathrooms, some stripped their old clawfoot bathtubs of their legs, buried them a quarter or half their length in the yard, and voila! instant mini-grotto just waiting for the statue of Mary.

The buried tubs as grottos is NOT an urban legend. I had two relatives who actually did this -- and were quite proud of their handiwork, too.

Who said Buffalonians were backward? They were into recycling 10 or 15 years at least before the first Earth Day!

No priest has ever been able to answer this burning question I have: If Jesus was a Jew, why the Puerto Rican name?

LOL. I gotta remember that one!