Mid-century Catholic schooling instilled visceral death-and-damnation anxiety in young children

Evidence

When I was in third grade, my mother noticed I was afflicted with an addiction. It was 1954 and my sister and I had just been transferred from P.S. #25 to St. Anthony’s Catholic School. Each night before sleep, my sister and I would get on our knees to say our mandatory children’s bedtime prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Then Mom would tuck us both under the covers in the same big bed we shared and give us our good night kisses. My younger sister Ginny would fall right off to sleep the moment her curly head hit the pillow, but I would remain awake in the dark, suffering a strange anxiety brought on by the gruesome thoughts of my early demise suggested in our bedtime prayer. … The nuns taught us the difference between venial and mortal sins. Venial sins made our souls spotted with darkness that could be burned off in purgatory, but if you committed a mortal sin your soul would be completely blackened, just like the fire roasted red bell peppers Mom would burn on the stovetop before marinating in garlic and olive oil. But unlike the peppers that got peeled and cooled in the jars in the fridge; our souls went straight to hell to keep burning for all eternity. — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs, 71

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: 1950s Catholic bedtime prayers and doctrine instilled death anxiety in children — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs: A Guide to Making It in Show…, 71; The same Catholic pedagogy ran from restrained to unrestrained severity by context — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 4969; Religion both causes anxiety and relieves it through punishment and comfort — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 619 (+1 more)

Related

• 1950s Catholic bedtime prayers and doctrine instilled death anxiety in children (similarity 0.93)
• Religion both causes anxiety and relieves it through punishment and comfort (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• 1950s Catholic bedtime prayers and doctrine instilled death anxiety in children #corroborates (0.95) — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs, 71
• The same Catholic pedagogy ran from restrained to unrestrained severity by context #expands (0.75) — , The Rod and the Child, 4969
• Religion both causes anxiety and relieves it through punishment and comfort #complicates (0.70) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 619
• Radical religious upbringing can destroy a child’s ability to feel their own emotions #expands (0.70) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 524