Cloistered for a reason

I have mentioned how our search for this volcanic warm sea pond was long and confusing, that the signs warning of bacteria kept us out of the water, and how on the way back to the car, I dropped my lovely little Canon Camera, causing its untimely demise.

OK, I admit it, I have never held Nums and Priests in high regard. While believing that many have the gift of celibacy, making it a mandatory obligation for full time ministry was just more than I could handle.

Read this week an infamous comment by Dick Butz a Secretary of Agriculture decades ago about the Catholic Church speaking on sexuality. "You no playa da game, you no makea da rules". It got him fired.

Yesterday I learned that monasticism was a reaction to the fall of the Roman Empire. Violence and ignorance so ruled the fifth century, that for education and culture and the future of civilization to survive, many in the church went into self imposed exhile from the world to survive. Monasticism continued to teach religion, culture, reading and writing, and from that time the wisdom for them of maintaining sexual purity through celebacy.

Takes the edge off the practice. Oddly as I wrote this post, an ex priest who married a nun came into my office to tell his story in response to an article I had written in our local paper. Life is funny.