In David Lodge’s 2001 novel Thinks, the protagonist Helen Reed muses on her Catholic schooling: “I’m deeply grateful that I had a Catholic education ... and in retrospect I feel only nostalgic affection for the nuns who taught me even though most of them were more or less deranged by superstition and sexual repression, which they did their best to instill in me...” This being Lodge, a faltering half-belief in the scrupulousness of Catholicism is a typical literary conceit, and one used to excellent comic effect. But like all comic turns, the underside is much darker: the subtext that the religious are an encumbrance rather than an enhancement to a modern education. This perspective must continue to be challenged as Catholic education moves forward.