Fun with Catholicism, Part Two: Monastic Rule for To-Day's Yoof
YES, I have been reading Eco.
NO, I do not hate the Roman Catholic Church; it just presents many opportunities for good-natured ribbing.
- They get up at dawn and go to bed at ten.
- They pray three times a day.
- The mornings are spent in diligent work, the afternoons in scholarly leisure.
- There is no sociosexual activity of any kind.
- They go around giving alms and helping people in need.
- They always welcome travellers.
- They wear brown habits with white sashes.
- They shave and cut their hair short, unless they are haemophiliacs. Nuns may have slightly longer hair than monks.
- They eat at nine, noon, three, and six.
- Prayers can come after breakfast, lunch, and supper.
- They don't hoard their stuff.
- You don't talk about heresy.
- You do not talk about heresy.
- They can have any theological opinions they want, but it's probably wise to exclude explicit atheists from an order that prays three times a day and spends all morning in exegesis of various religious texts.
- They should at least be nominally Christian, but accomodations can be made.
- Friday night is game night. We've already taken away sex and money; don't let's take away good clean fun.
- They don't gamble with real money.
- They don't mistreat animals.
- They don't nap in the cloisters unless they're working on less than four hours of sleep.
I think this is much more reasonable than four hundred pages of St Benedict talking about how much they should be allowed to drink, but that's just me.