Hi, sorry for disappearing for a few days. The weather decided to shift on me suddenly from weak sunlight that isn't much of a problem for me, to strong sunlight that knocks me on my butt in 10 minutes. Plus, now it's dry enough to start weeding the flowerbeds and working on a vegetable garden, which means a lot more time outside, which I hate. Plus, internet's been iffy and I keep getting distracted from things, so I tend to wander off and forget to wander back when the internet goes out.
So, there are some who object to calling Isidore the patron saint of the internet or computer users, so you might get objections if you go to a catholic church or something.
Quick note for anyone that isn't catholic or doesn't know much about Catholicism. I'm not catholic, or even particularly religious, so I don't know all the rules, and I don't like the religion enough to look into things any more than I really have to. But, the patron saint thing is sort of like a patron god thing, where they are particularly protective of a particular subset, like taxi drivers. It used to be that a blacksmith would pray to a patron god of blacksmiths. Patron saints are similar, and you'd pray to one that has some kind of power in the realm you want, like praying to the patron saint of lost things, Saint Anthony of Padua, when you need some help finding something you lost.
This lovely man was named the patron saint of the internet because he started schools and tried to write down all the knowledge in the world, something that several others have done, and wanted to share all information with everyone. He required seminaries to be built, which is basically the school to become a priest. Included in his list of books he wrote is a history of the world, a history of Goths, a dictionary, and an encyclopedia, plus a bunch of things for his religious work. He wanted to make the information available for everyone, and let people be able to look things up. One of the things that is really awesome about him is that he referenced older writers, and we would have no idea what they said if he hadn't written it up for us.
Interestingly, Etymology is actually a word he coined, which he used to name a series of books that he wrote, 20 volumes containing the entire world's knowledge, as far as he knew.
In 1997, Pope John Paul II named Isidore of Seville as the patron saint of the internet, though it's still a bit debated. Personally, I'm good with this.
I'm going to avoid most of the rest because there's a lot of history that I don't consider too important, and a lot of church politics that I'm going to ignore too. Before anyone claims I'm against religion, I'm not. I like the theory of it just fine. I just have trouble understanding the human element of it and not getting grumpy when a peaceful religion gets twisted to war because of greed or some other form of stupidity. I prefer to avoid religion because then I don't insult people as much.
Sources:
University of Portland-- Patron Saint of the Internet
Franciscan Media-- Saint Isidore
The Conversation-- Isidore of Seville
Knights of the Holy Eucharist-- Patron Saint of the Internet (This also has a prayer for him, if you need it.)
Father Matthew P Schneider-- Isidore is not the Patron of the internet
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