The song is clearly about a young man's childhood in a Christian Brothers school where he suffered abuse.
He talks about how he found the Catholic doctrines restrictive with lines like "a holy book full of rules" which he felt he was forced to believe, and sees followers as narrow minded ("get on our knees every Sunday, With the other fools"). He thinks of the school as a prison, comparing the classrooms to "cell blocks", and sees the priests as domineering ("We were warped by the Christian Brothers") and hypocritical, juxtaposing the "handprint on you skin" from a beating with the jewelled glove which represents the wealthy and well dressed priests.
Now that he's older though, he is able to think for himself or "feed [his] own mind" and is encouraging others to do the same. It's not stated explicitly that he has actually given up on religion though, and the prayer that comes in at the end before the last chorus suggests that his faith has merely evolved. He still believes in God, but disapproves of Christian dogma and its ministries, asking God to remedy the situation.
The song is clearly about a young man's childhood in a Christian Brothers school where he suffered abuse.
He talks about how he found the Catholic doctrines restrictive with lines like "a holy book full of rules" which he felt he was forced to believe, and sees followers as narrow minded ("get on our knees every Sunday, With the other fools"). He thinks of the school as a prison, comparing the classrooms to "cell blocks", and sees the priests as domineering ("We were warped by the Christian Brothers") and hypocritical, juxtaposing the "handprint on you skin" from a beating with the jewelled glove which represents the wealthy and well dressed priests.
Now that he's older though, he is able to think for himself or "feed [his] own mind" and is encouraging others to do the same. It's not stated explicitly that he has actually given up on religion though, and the prayer that comes in at the end before the last chorus suggests that his faith has merely evolved. He still believes in God, but disapproves of Christian dogma and its ministries, asking God to remedy the situation.