There is such diversity in Sale with the vast growth corridor to the West and vibrant local parish communities reaching from the coast to the High Country – I am excited by the pastoral opportunities which exist and which are yet to be imagined.

yet the world between them was wide.

The presence of 22 different ethnic groups in our diocese is a problem but it is also a reason for hope for the future. It presents a challenge because it means being familiar with 22 different traditions and customs, but it is also a motive for hope because these differences are a source of mutual enrichment.

The country is very diverse, geographically, ethnically, so the reality that the bishops have on the coast, in the mountains, or in the jungle is very different.

All the paradigms of culturally evolved institutions, morals, exchange, and money refer to such practices whose benefits transcend the individuals who practice them in the particular instances. The result is that whole groups may be helped by them to expand into what I shall call extended orders, through the effects of practices of which the individuals are not aware. Such practices can lead to the formation of orderly structures far exceeding the perception of those whose actions produce them. They make possible the adaptation of such actions to unknown circumstances and lead to the formation of an indefinitely expansible order which can develop only through group selection, that is, a selection of groups for common attributes possessed by them.

Everywhere in this world of 1400, populations existed in interconnections.

In the priestly life of all anthropomorphic cults the marks of a vicarious consumption of time are visible.

There would be dreamers of dreams and seers of visions and hearers of voices; readers of the entrails of beasts and interpreters of the flight of birds; there would be burning bushes and stone tablets on mountain-tops, and inspired words dictated to aged disciples on lonely islands. There would arise special castes of men and women, learned in these sacred matters; and these priestly castes would naturally emphasize the importance of their calling, would hold themselves aloof from the common herd, endowed with special powers and entitled to special privileges. They would interpret the oracles in ways favorable to themselves and their order; they would proclaim themselves friends and confidants of the god, walking with him in the night-time, receiving his messengers and angels, acting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in dealing punishments and in receiving gifts. They would become makers of laws and moral codes. They would wear special costumes to distinguish them, they would go through elaborate ceremonies to impress their followers, employing all sensuous effects, architecture and sculpture and painting, music and poetry and dancing, candles and incense and bells and gongs.

The ancient Mediterranean : before monotheism, people changed and exchanged rites and gods as we do with ethnic food.

They were crossing so many lines it was hard to figure out where they were anymore.

I am parochially minded; but my parish is a big one, taking in all civilized Europe and America.

The religious zeal which animates priests, leads them to undertake labors and to brave perils which would be far beyond the powers of one in secular employment.

It may be suspected that the custom of employing a divine man or animal as a public scapegoat is much more widely diffused than appears from the examples cited.

Legal and illegal activities had become inextricably intertwined.