IP: Saint Isidore of Seville as patron saint for cybernauts (fwd)

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> 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]
>
>
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