Quote from Letter 5,49 to Castor, bishop of Rimini. 6 June 595
The text of the petition included herewith indicates to you what prayers Luminosus, abbot of the monastery of Saint Andrew and Saint Thomas, poured out to us with tears in his eyes. Over this matter, we suggest to your Fraternity that, following the death of the abbot of that monastery, your church should on no occasion involve itself in describing and looking after what is has acquired, or in acquiring property of the same monastery. But we want you to ordain as abbot for that monastery the person whom the community demands unanimously, without exception, someone worthy in his morality and suitable for monastic discipline.
But we totally prohibit public masses being celebrated there by the bishop, so that no change is provided for meetings of the people in the private areas of the monks, in case the frequent entry of women may commonly thus attract the simpler mind (Heaven forbid!) into temptation.
Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), II, 375
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