Pagan Babies: and Other Catholic Memories » (Reprint)

Gina Cascone grew up in central New Jersey and survived nine years of Catholic schooling. Her books include Pagan Babies and Mother's Little Helper. Gina lives with her husband in New York City.

As a child, Gina Cascone would hide under her bed, in the closet, and run away from her parents, hoping somehow to escape her worst fear. But she couldn't hide from the awful truth...

She had to go to Catholic school.

Do nuns have legs? Is Original Sin the "starter sin" for novices? Can the rosary be said in under fifteen minutes? These are some of the questions that vex young Gina Cascone as she makes her way, grade by grade—and prayer by prayer—through the rigors of a Catholic education. All the answers can be found in this hilarious classic of childhood foibles: the traumatic first day of school, the dorky plaid uniform complete with matching beanie, glow-in-the-dark rosary beads, first confession trauma, proper dashboard decor ("Cadillacs got Jesus; Oldsmobiles got Mary"), and the race to save the most "pagan babies," who weren't lucky enough to be born Catholic and American.

Publishers Weekly

During the nine years she spent at St. Lucy's Catholic School, Cascone, a children's author, gathered enough pithy observations and opinions to fill this short memoir. Enrolled against her will (she protested by hiding in a closet, under a bed and behind a sofa, all to no avail), Cascone endured her years at St. Lucy's by imagining what the nuns' legs looked like and other lofty thoughts. Seen through her not-so-impressionable child's eyes, Catholic school was a comedy of contradictions and questionable practices, including baptism, to which she cavalierly refers as throwing water on the non-consenting. Cascone writes with little fondness for praying Rosaries, kneeling through the stations of the cross and adopting "pagan babies," the practice of giving money to foreign missions so non-Catholic children could be raised Catholic. Her sole happy memory appears to be that of Father Joseph, who went easy on children in the confessional and always asked them to say a prayer for him. Given her own experiences, Cascone decides against baptizing her own child, fearing that to raise her daughter Catholic would subject her to the same education her mother had, even though the church has changed radically since her youth. Cascone's irreverent and often funny recollections would surely be pronounced as impertinent by the sisters who taught her. For that, they will delight many readers who underwent Catholic education as reluctantly as she did and considered graduation an escape from earthly purgatory. (May 20) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Contents

1. Catholic Kids Make Great Faces

2. Creatures of Habit

3. Don't Drink the Holy Water

4. Bless Me, Father, for I Am Sinning

5. Ashes and Sackcloth

6. How to Get Holy Communion off the Roof of Your Mouth

7. All Things Considered, I'd Rather Be in Limbo

8. Pagan Babies

9. Holy Propaganda

10. Martyrmania

11. How Do You Know You've Been Blessed with a Baby and Other Religious Questions the Nuns Wouldn't Answer

12. The Rosary in under Fifteen Minutes

13. The Dashboard Navigator

14. Get a Piece of the Pope

15. What Do You Buy a Nun for Christmas?

16. What Did You Give Up for Lent?

17. The May Crowning

18. Sister Was Not Impressed When She Found Me Reading The Confessions of Saint Augustine

19. The Pink Slip from the Rome Office

20. The Pilgrimage

21. "Don't Forget to Say a Prayer for Me!"