When my twink friend Matt invited me to visit his hometown of Mankato, Minnesota, about 3 hours away, I was expecting to be bored stiff, except for the sexy time. Surely it was just another of those dreary Upper Midwest havens of barbecue, "you betcha," and Lutherans. Maybe with a small Muslim minority. If I was lucky, an Ethiopian restaurant.
But it turned out to be the most Catholic town I've ever seen in the U.S. You could almost smell the incense. There were processionals of the saints right out on the street.
I love Catholic churches, rituals, liturgy, art, and guys. When I was growing up in the austere, no-frills Nazarene Church, they were strictly forbidden, so they had an aura of mystery. I still get a little frisson of wrongdoing while touring one of the great cathedrals of Europe, or looking at Medieval art in a museum.
So a small town in Minnesota devoted to ancient, long-obsolete Catholic traditions was quite a find.
Four Catholic Churches. The biggest, Sts. Peter and Paul is old school, none of these streamlined minimalist Presbyterian-style stuff. There are life-sized statues of saints over the altar.
You can hear a Latin Mass every Sunday afternoon. We're going.
There are confessions, novenas, stations of the cross, and even an Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament every day from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.
I don't know what that is, but it sounds contemplative.
Across the street is the Blessed José Sanchez del Rio High School Seminary. He was a 14 year old boy for refusing to renounce his Catholic faith. He was made a saint in 2016.
The seminary enrolls about 20 boys in 9th-12th grade who want become priests. Although they will still have to study theology in adult seminary, they do a lot of religious devotion in addition to their secular classes: daily Mass, Angeles, Rosary, and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, plus an hour of sports and two hours of recreation.
Most of the students are Hispanic, which makes sense, given that their patron saint is from Mexico,but this seminarian is Asian. He is named after a previous Pope. His parents apparently wanted to get him started early.
There's also the Institute of the Incarnate Word Minor Seminary, for "young boys." I don't know how much younger, but they have daily Mass, Angeles, and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, too. Plus indoor rock climbing on the Monday within the Octave of Easter.
An octave consists of the 8 days after a festival. Who would ever know that? Why would they want to measure time that way? Wouldn't "the Monday after Easter" make more sense?
I guess in order to sound more Latin, and therefore spirtual/
For the ladies, the Our Lady of Good Counsel School Sisters of Notre Dame on top of a steep hill is a convent with a huge Gothic chapel. The sisters used to run a school. Now they host a golf tournament, a Red Barn festival, a German festival, and some workshops on women's empowerment
After all that, a regular Catholic school seems almost mundane. Loyola has an enrollment of 700 and two campuses, one k-8, and the other high school. The high school offers all-school Mass, sports team-only Mass, retreats, rosaries, and, of course, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
There are also a lot of sports, including wrestling, swimming, powerlifting, and cross-country. But after all of that spiritual contemplation, I feel kind of funny looking for beefcake. So here are three swimmers from another town nowhere near Mankato.
Nice bulges.
Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to watch some seminarians in an outdoor processional.
