"I'd rather say a minister, or a reverend," says Ellen. "I've met priests; they're men like Father Clifford, at Saint Monica's in Rivet City, and they're not allowed to get married. Reverend Avellone was, and so is Knight-Captain Colvin. It's a- it's a different order, I guess you'd call it."

Also, there's the part where Father Clifford is crazy, because what kind of religion seriously requires its most compassionate ministers to voluntarily remove themselves from the gene pool in a world where the mortality rate is nearly as high as the incidence of savagery and barbarism. That's up there with Confessor Cromwell and Radiant Mother Curie and their beliefs about Atom, in Ellen's book.

"And I never said so because it never seemed as if it ought to come up in conversation. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you with it."