Ah, the good old days

[radegund]

A family friend, brought up in ultra-Catholic Ireland, swears blind that the following were taught to her as The Four Sins that Cry Out to Heaven for Vengeance:

1. Not doing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.
2. Not paying an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.
3. Striking without just cause.
4. Sodomy.

She says she and her classmates grew up with the firm idea that sodomy must be something boring and technical to do with industrial disputes.

(I hope it's true!)

Comments

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Supposedly the 4 sins that cry out for vengance are:

Murder of the innocent
Sodomy
Oppression of the poor
Defrauding workers of their fair pay.

I've always felt hard done by that even though I did go to a convent school it was too late for the whole really baroque experience. I can still recite chunks of mass despite not having been one for over 10 years, so I guess it wasn't all wasted.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Ah. So she did misremember. Or I did. Oh well.

("Hard done by" seems an odd reaction...)

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Hard done by is tongue in cheek, mostly.

Now that I live in the UK, where they don't quite realise that going to a convent school isn't especially significant in Dublin, I sometimes wish I do have horror stories about how horrible the nuns were and the insane things we were taught. In fact, the two nunw were lovely, I got a very good sceintific and mathematical education and the insane sex ed we were taught in relgion was conteracted by the rational discussion of sec we had in biology.

Which isn't quite as good a story.

[ailbhe]

I don't remember getting any lists of sins that cry out for vengeance. I do remember lessons on how good forgiveness is and so on, though.

I can only remember the Mass in Irish, and then only if I sing it.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I haven't been to Mass in years, but oddly I sing at an Anglican church every Sunday. That's all about the music, though - I don't know how the vicar would react if he knew of my Pagan proclivities :-)

I remember the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit that come upon one at Confirmation (eagna, tuiscint, comhairle, neart, foghlaim, cráifeacht agus eagla an tiarna) and the seven deadly sins (pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy an' sloth - learnt those at home), and maybe the Ten Commandments in rhyme as taught by Máistir Ó Coinceannainn, if I put my mind to it, but other than that my memory of Catholic religious instruction is hazy at best.

[ailbhe]

I was in the Maistir's final class before he retired. Until he died (cancer, when I was about 18), I used to fantasise that he was my father.

I understand that very few people felt that way about him, because in his younger days he was a - um - unholy terror.

The only bit I remember is "na dean maru, druis, na goid" and he wouldn't explain 'em.

I remember most of what we were taught to sing. In fact, most of the Irish-language songs I know are religious.