of entitlement combined with a cruel sense of a lack of empathy.
Jeebus H.

perfect sense.

...and here we are.

and we can see how well THEY turned out. In the empathy and humility departments.

I went to Catholic School until 8th grade. Despite my severely devoted father, my parents switched us to public school at that time because the education at the public school was better, and the student body at the Catholic High School was notorious for being a place to either send screwed up kids, or for screwing them up. Every year we'd get a few transfers out of the Catholic High School over to our public High School and they always viewed life as a step up from that experience.

Went to all Catholic schools, wore about a half dozen medals around her neck. All she talked about was church and going to mass and going on monastery retreats and whether this or that was “Christian”. Outside of her part-time job, I believe her only social contact was church. It sounds sad when I read it back, but truth is this woman was the most evil, conniving, sociopathic, abusive person I’ve ever met in my life. And, yes, she was a Trumpette who got her information from Fox News and Infowars.

Went to catholic schools. There is a culture of bullying. Worse than secular or other religious schools.

Parents who have the money but don’t want to bother attempting to address their kids’ behavior. They think they’re sending them off to the nuns to set them right but really they’re just being sent to a cesspool with other similarly broken kids and they will just feed off each other.

The student body at my school was an ecclectic blend of blue collar and yuppie larvae united by a mutual fear of the public school system. Of course, they were worse than anything I ever encountered in the public school system, once my parents found the good sense to switch me over.

I mean, God the Father. Only. No Mother? Hello!

What becomes of a Motherless child?

Public school wasn't challenging enough.

Catholic school was too challenging academically.

This particular school was more religious than other Catholic schools. My son has ADD with some mild learning disabilities. However, he wasn't challenged in public school. In Catholic school, he stuck out like a sore thumb. Then the bullying began. The school didn't know how to handle it.

I ended up homeschooling him for a few years afterward. He needed to get those basics because he was ADD/LD.

Our's wouldn't wear MAGA hats. And probably only a select few would be sent to a Right To Life event in Washington DC.

Whether one agrees with RTL or not, reproductive rights is a serious issue. It is not a sport event. If this school respected the sanctity of life, they should have assured their representation at the march was solemn and not a "kegger" event.

Like all schools, the culture will depend on the leadership.

It's pretty clear that Covington Catholic High School is led by aggressive, intolerant men. It's a single-sex school, which I think always tends to produce misogynistic student bodies. It has a serious sports emphasis, which also tends to produce a bullying atmosphere when athletics override academics and cultural education.

It's producing a bunch of bullies who will grow up to continue to be bullies. It's almost certainly run by bullies. The principal of the school appears in some videos about the school. He comes off as an authoritarian leader, as I would expect from the behavior of his students.

I've also known co-ed Catholic schools that produce students of good character and goodwill.

I don't think it's possible to generalize on this subject and be accurate.

What I am very bothered by in some of the above posts is that the bullying was apparently tolerate by the adults running the schools.

Years ago my older son was being bullied at the local public school, and we switched him after 6th grade to an excellent secular private school where that behavior wasn't tolerated. I think my son would have been genuinely suicidal by the end of 8th grade had we not made that change.

As I said, I don't think my experience of two years in "Catholic" high school ever affected me as a Catholic. Yes, the Church as an institution has a whole host of issues to deal with (the vast majority of which are self-inflicted) but as a faith I love it and feel it is a part of who I am, and I don't feel a need to apologize for that.

Certain private schools--whether they be religious or secular--are a breeding ground for a toxic environment for reasons that don't have anything to do with any sort of belief system. The one I attended was certainly one of them, and I think Covington Catholic--for the reasons you mention--is another.

have their own cultures. It is not that they are operated by religions, either. Secular private schools have similar differences. Some are excellent and teach outstanding social and ethical values. Others are ugly places, full of people who promote ugly ideas.

I'm not a fan of schools like the one you described or ones like Covington. They're far too common out there, and produce mean, bigoted people from their student bodies.

I was a public school kid. There were no private schools in my small California home town. I was lucky, in that my schools promoted excellent citizenship and were almost devoid of bullies.

Different public schools, like private schools, also exist. It's all a leadership thing, I believe.

My HS was nothing like what you described.
Bits and pieces of mild harassment, but NOT tolerated by the school.
And, I had "fallen away" during 8th grade, and that WAS tolerated.
In fact, Juniors and Seniors could opt into community outreach in lieu of a religion class.
(I went to an inner city Catholic grade school and worked with the smart kids so the teacher could focus on the kids who needed more help. I did things like math games, taught them chess, Parchisi, word puzzles and the like)
Were there cliques. Sure, not believable that such won't happen in any sizeable group of human beings. But, the totally ostracized group didn't really exist.
Glad you accept that these places run the gamut.

I have been involved with a number of public and private schools over my lifetime, as a student, a parent and an employee. The generalizations being made here are just fundamentally ignorant (like so many generalizations) are mildly to extremely offensive, and have no place on this site.

I appreciate you stepping up and being the voice of reason. With the amount you think and post about religion, I hope it carries some weight with others who are so quick to condemn an entire group.

I went to Catholic school for 12 years.
My kids went to Catholic school too.

All of would have been expelled for that un Christian behavior.

My Mom converted to Catholicism and I got baptized when I was around 12, but it never “took”. Anyway while I remember the hazing, I also didn’t understand it, didn’t understand the school. Why would someone use a squirt gun to shoot vinegar at somebody you don’t even know?

I know it’s not just Catholic HS’s that indulge in hazing

I was a very troubled kid, and I just ended up taking off. Which is better than some of my more destructive impulses at middle school.

The kids seemed like kids anywhere, the adults were the same, just a mixture of good and bad. From what I’m reading, I’m very glad I didn’t last. I didn’t fit in whatsoever, but I didn’t fit in anywhere but the streets at that time of my life.

but I went to both public & catholic echools and saw NO difference in the behavior of either teachers or students. My thought is that you just happened to attend a lousy school..There's plenty of lousy public schools, and we all know that

The culture of hazing that the OP mentions was definitely a thing among the upper class men. The school I attended for 18 months was very well regarded and many of the students came from families that had generations of their young men attend this school. Many of the students came from affluent families as opposed to me, who came from a working class family that had to scrimp to send me to a private Catholic HS.

I have such distinct memories of that freshman year and the way we "froshes" (as we were called) were treated. For example, the main entrance of the school had the school seal (in tile) on it. Freshman were pounced upon by upper class men if even a toe touched the seal. During the change of classes, it literally looked like the parting of the Red Sea around the seal due to the fear of stepping on it.

For me, I came to despise the privileged attitude and the sense that I did not belong in that environment to the point where I begged my folks to allow me to transfer to Public HS.

Enjoy your stay.

And kiss my weekly Mass attending ass while you're at it.

I suggest you work on that since you'll soon only be able to read DU and not post on it.

of pure hatred and racism and he did not see it that way.

THAT is scary

The high school was actually pretty great. Very academically challenging, social justice bent in the teaching. Many many many of the graduates went on to positions chosen because they wanted to make the world better. Ursuline nuns ran it.

College was a.Jesuit school with a good reputation. But it was an intellectual and social swamp, with many of the attitudes the Covington Hitler Youth demonstrated. Sexism and racism were rampant and extreme.

I am no longer Catholic, and some of my memories of things that happened to my friends in college make me as sick in my stomach as that video did (did you watch it?) But I am eternally grateful to my high school teachers for opening my eyes to the world.

But my mom put her foot down. He was a graduate of a Catholic HS and Catholic college. However, they had moved out to the suburbs where the schools were excellent. The Catholic HS that he went to was too far for the bus, and our local girls' Catholic HS wasn't that strong academically. Plus it had the reputation of being where all of the "sluts" went. So, I went to public school.

My husband went to a Catholic school, but it was a terrible one. Not all Catholic schools are good!

Things were pretty much the same.

Those Covington students were "smart ass white boys". Bret Kavanaugh was one of them too.

The Catholic Church needs to get rid of them. They are White Supremacists.

The problem isn’t in the school or the kids, that is too simple. Look beyond the maga hats and see what they’re wearing maga shirts, jackets, scarfs. This should open your eyes to the family. These kids got dressed at home these are clothes their parents purchased for them.

I went to an all girls Catholic high school in the 70's and was pretty much just your average kid. I had a good high school experience.

I'd been in till 8th.

My brother went to a non-Catholic but private boys school -- and he hated it.

So maybe all boys schools are the worst?

Then I switched to a private Catholic school for high school and it was a breath of fresh air. The teachers were wonderful and there weren't any cliques. I was as welcome as anyone who had been there since kindergarten.

So I think it all depends on the individual district and school.

It was this march for civil rights, by my teachers, that had a huge impact on my life.