Attending a Catholic elementary school instilled terror in my heart, not faith. The slightest misbehavior resulted in a painful series of raps on the knuckles with a ruler.
I felt too frightened to disobey. But even I once got caught whispering with another child during mass. As a punishment, we were made to kneel in the aisle, on the cold, hard floor for the remainder of the ritual.
I couldn’t have been more relieved when my parents allowed me to attend public school in the eighth grade. That marked the end of any pretense of religiosity on my part.