From - Sat Jan 30 15:54:31 1999
Received: from listbox.com (majordomo.pobox.com [208.210.124.23]) by umbar.pair.com (8.9.1/8.6.12) with SMTP id FAA02245 for ; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 05:50:48 -0500 (EST)
X-Envelope-To: 
Received: (qmail 3193 invoked by uid 516); 29 Jan 1999 10:17:32 -0000
Delivered-To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com
Message-Id: <4.1.19990129111145.00bc1100@linc.cis.upenn.edu>
X-Sender: farber@linc.cis.upenn.edu
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 11:12:11 -0500
To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com
From: Dave Farber 
Subject: IP: Saint Isidore of Seville as patron saint for cybernauts (fwd)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Sender: owner-ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com
Precedence: list
Reply-To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
Status: O
X-Status: 
X-Mozilla-Status: 8001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
X-UIDL: 515f97d4d67abb72b8d40f7bdf15ca3c


>
>Ecumenical News International
>ENI News Service
>21 January 1999
>
>Medieval Spanish saint is now a travelling companion for cybernauts
>ENI-99-0019
>
>Barcelona, 21 January (ENI)--If you think that at the end of the
>second Christian millennium the Roman Catholic practice of designating
>a patron saint for various professions has been abandoned, you are
>wrong.
>
>The church may soon appoint a special guardian for adepts of perhaps
>the most innovative creation of our times - the Internet and computer
>science. And the likely candidate was born more than 1400 years before
>the World Wide Web was created.
>
>At the request of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social
>Communication, an organisation called the Internet Observation
>Services (SOI) carried out an investigation to find the saint who best
>represents the interests of computer operators and "cybernauts"-
>addicts of the Internet.
>
>According to the Spanish correspondent of the Latin American and
>Caribbean Communications Agency, SOI's researchers decided that the
>most suitable patron saint was one of the church's leading
>intellectuals, Saint Isidore, Bishop of Seville, in Spain, born in
>556.
>
>For many centuries, Isidore has been seen as a man ahead of his time.
>He wrote a form of dictionary, called Etymologies, with a structure
>similar to what is now called a database. Like the World Wide Web,
>Etymologies put at the disposal of its readers massive amounts of
>knowledge. An encyclopedia in 20 volumes, it contained information on
>the seven liberal arts and subjects such as medicine, agriculture,
>architecture, the books and offices of the church, and other church
>subjects. It was an extremely popular reference work.
>
>According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Isidore
>"had a profound impact  upon the culture and educational practice of
>Western medieval Europe ... His works became a storehouse of knowledge
>freely utilised by innumerable medieval authors."  His influence was
>such that many centuries after his death he was declared a "Doctor of
>the Church", a title reserved for Christianity's intellectual elite.
>
>According to SOI, Isidore also took great pains to bring coherence to
>his work, to ensure that is was as complete as possible and that all
>elements were complementary.
>
>SOI also claimed that, like the Internet, the work of Saint Isidore
>was a bridge between one era and the next. The saint "was ahead of his
>time and was a cultural bridge between the Ancient World and the
>Middle Ages".  As a result, one of ISO's researchers said, "we feel
>similar to him as we are also on the dawn of a new stage in history".
>
>Isidore, the researcher added, was one of the principal participants
>of the church's Fourth Council of Toledo, held in 633. He was deeply
>interested in the training of clergy and was known for his kindness to
>the poor.Isidore died in April 636. [455 words]
>
>
>All articles (c) Ecumenical News International
>Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and
>provided ENI is acknowledged as the source.
>
>Ecumenical News International
>Tel: (41-22) 791 6087/6515 Fax: (41-22) 798 1346
>E-Mail: eni@eni.ch
>PO Box 2100   150 route de Ferney   CH-1211 Geneva 2   Switzerland
>
>