I have to answer this from the prospective that I was one of those kids dragged into mass every darn Sunday and I am talking about late 50's early 60's and whose mom thought that the high mass was of course the best one so it was all in Latin a and I hated every minute of it. I went to a Catholic school and Saturday Catiscism as well. I was forced to make my first communion and confession an act that scared the crap out of me then later on when I begged to no longer attend because I found it so hypocritical I was forced to be confirmed. I would go on girl scout camp outs that were started on Friday night and have to bring an egg sandwich or other non meat type of eats as the rest were roasting hot dogs and having a great time but we were not at that time allowed to eat meat on Fridays. They have since changed that but it makes me angry that I had to do penance for something that is now ok . I could never join my friends on weekends because they were to be devoted to a church I never intended to follow once I grew up. I missed a great deal of life because of religion. My parents and grandparents were devout Catholics and funny thing is that all my cousins and brothers and I are all non believers. The crap that went on in Catholic schools when I attended I would not wish on my worst enemy. Talk about abuse man you have no idea and let me say it made it very hard to believe in a loving kind God when you got the S!it beaten out of you by his so called followers. Years later my father cried and asked us kids to forgive him because he put us through that because of his beliefs. Beliefs he later abandoned as well after realizing that he passed on to us what horrors were done to him as a child as well. He recounted horror stories of being strapped by the Franciscan sisters and later on getting more of it when he got home. It took my youngest brother having an ulcer at the age of 7 to get it through my parents thick skulls that this is nothing you do to a child. I will never set foot inside a church again not even to get buried.