The Cut-Tail Class

“Who made you?” the teacher asked sternly. “God made me,” more than forty voices answered vociferously. “Why did God make you?” “God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.” “To whose image and likeness did God make you?” “God made me to his own image and likeness.” And so it went on from question 1 to question 370 in the little red book entitled ‘A Catechism of Christian Doctrine’. Not all the answers had to be learnt for the first communion class but more than half of them. There I was — seven years old — in an overcrowded classroom in Nelson Street Boys’ Roman Catholic School at the corner of Nelson Street and South Quay, shouting out answers at the top of my voice.

After asking the first 12 questions or so, the catechism teacher lined us up to answer the questions individually. For every incorrect answer, it was one stroke with a guava whip in the palm of the hand and ‘it came to pass there was great weeping and gnashing of teeth’. No one liked the catechism class and it was called among the pupils the ‘cut-tail’ class . . . not ‘tail’ really but a more animalistic word. There was a guy who did not know his catechism. His hand was injured, saffron had been applied and it was wrapped in bandages but the teacher gave him two lashes along the side of that hand and four in the palm of the other. Mr Rosemin our teacher, shouted, “Nobody could fool me. That hand is not really sick. In my class is do or die. You fellas lucky.

I never give a boy more than six strokes even if he does not know the answer to twelve questions. For the examination, if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” The exam was at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception where the Irish priest, sweating profusely, asked each boy only three or four questions and very few failed. Back at the school, the failures were beaten to a frazzle for bringing disgrace to the school. After this was the preparation for First Communion and Confirmation — both on the same day. The first at 8 am and the second at 3 in the afternoon. Before receiving communion, we had to make confession. The priest sat in the cubicle with little windows on each side and when he opened it, we had to say, Bless me Father, for I have sinned.

This is my first confession.” Then we went on to outline our sins. Well, I had all my sins carefully rehearsed, “I steal a fry bake from the pot when my mother was not watching. I pull my sister plait and run off. I pelt the neighbour dog with a big stone. For these and all the other sins I cannot remember, I am truly sorry for them.” Some questions and answers were drilled into our thick skulls so deeply, that at age 74, I can still remember them. For instance, the Ten Commandments and “What are the four sins crying to heaven for vengeance?”

Answer: “The four sins crying to heaven for vengeance are: 1. Wilful murder 2. The sin of Sodom 3. Oppression of the poor and 4. Defrauding labourers of their wages.” And of course: “What is God?” Answer: “God is the supreme Spirit, who alone exists of himself, and is infinite in all perfections.” Talking about catechism classes, reminds me of the boy who in ‘the beat-them-but-don’t-kill-them’ school days, asked his teacher: “Miss, you will beat a boy for something he did not do?” The teacher replied, “No, I’ll never do that!” The boy came in quickly, “Miss, I did not do my home work.”