Brides of Christ

In convent school

The metal rule

Inflicted a relentless sting.

Harsh nuns instilled fear all day long,

While droning a demented song

Of being brides of Christ the King.

If confession heals and Jesus saves

Why did they act like Satan's slaves?

Not Lord's prayer nor holy water

Nor veneration of their altar

Could stop them cracking cruel welts

On hands which had some words misspelt.

No ritual or outward form

Restrained the fervent Devil worm,

Which tunnelled in the very soul

Of those who wore the habit robe;

Though sanctity was their life's goal,

No sacred song could make them whole.

Nor was excessive force confined

To religious who were feminine;

The Christian Brother crew would flog

And starve boys like a hated dog.

A few would bugger children too,

A rule of silence running through

Their fearful schools of charity.

For adult men the Trappist dream

Was not a wholly crazy scheme:

But what madness made them think

To thwart every child's instinct

To run off at the mouth?

For all the strictures of their rule,

To break the law they were not loath.

       The ineffectuality of holy water and beads etc comes as no surprise to those of us brought up in a Presbyterian community. However, I have seen the Benedictine monks at Mt St Bernard Abbey chanting the Lord's Prayer, which was thought in the schools I attended to be heavy magic, which would deliver us from evil. (There are no children at Mt St Bernard, and I am unaware of any wrong there.) 
       I presume the Christian Brothers in Ireland and nuns in England also used the Lord's Prayer every day, as the Bible instructs.  It doesn't seem to have brought about the intended effect.
       The law in the Irish Republic which set up the Christian Brothers schools said that corporal punishment was to be a last resort, and must always be recorded in a punishment book, to be presented to the government inspectors when they visited the school. Only a leather strap was to be used. This law was ignored, and the children were forced to obey the same rule of 'recreational silence' as the brothers, who had often been recruited at a very young age themselves. In a residential school, this meant that they could only talk in class, for instructional purposes. Bizarre.