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A very interestibng portrait of your school, vienna. Did you have a religion class in "regular" school, or was this part of (involuntary) extracurricular activities and took place in the mess? In Germany we have religion classes in regular (state) schools btw.
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I don't know about nowadays in Catholic schools, what with political correctness and the "i'm OK, Your OK" sort of atmosphere, but when I was in school, the day started off with an hour of religion class. The instruction was not limited to just Catholicism; we were taught, in depth, about all the other religions and philosophies as a means of understanding and comparing beliefs (although, there did seem to be a bit of a bias against the Lutherans, [wonder why?]). Our school was a Jesuit-based school. The Jesuits are known as the scholars of the Roman Catholic Church and have long required their members to be college educated and to seek advanced degrees. This means our school was open to discussion of varied viewpoints. The religious instruction was not mandatory as there were a few students who were not Catholic and attended the school because of the high quality of education being offered. However, I don't recall any of those students not participating. It is interesting to note that we were graded on "Religion" as a subject and we were also graded on our participation in Sunday Mass, which the Catholic students were required to attend as a group...
BTW, the school name is St. Paul Catholic School and, as I previously stated, was part of a parish complex built in Gothic style with large garnite blocks. The site was enclsed by black iron fences and gates. The main gate at the front of the church and school had the initials "S.P." in iron and gilded at the top of the gate. We students used to tell people who asked that the initials meant "State Prision". Also, the nuns who taught at the school were from the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary or, as abbreviated, B.V.M.; thus, each nun was known as "Sister Mary [Name], B.V.M." We students used to maintain the B.V.M. stood for "Black Veiled Monsters"...