Words for Wednesday - Father Paul's quandary

Now, in june Messymimi is posting the prompts. Today we are given:
mile
coverage
corner
throw
monarch
dump
     and/or
paragraph
reduce
gate
confine
cruel
shiver

This week Mimi is also adding the following archaic words to use or ignore:

mooncalf (a foolish person)
orts (scraps or remains)
fandangle (a useless or purely ornamental item)
 Way back in January I wrote an 'end of the world'-story, called either Mary & Allan or The Wave. The story can be read in its totality here. I have in my mind several spin off's, lose ends and so forth to this story. And today I have written out one of them. 
  To the best of my knowledge, I did not use any of the words, but I love those old fashioned ones; Fandangle, Mooncalf ... hmm just right for a "Magical me" story.
 
Father Paul's Quandary
Some years later the settlement was growing and the mouse farm was finally thriving. An expedition, looking for more people, had also found more mice in an old cave somewhere nearby. Before this happened, the mice were getting steadily more inbred, and Mona had been on the verge of killing them off when the winter's expedition returned home with their catch. All week after their homecoming of the expedition Father Paul had not been his normal, equanimous self.
  As the week ended, they held their habitual Saturday evening meeting, as every Saturday after dinner. Everybody met in the common hut. There grudges were settled, disputes ended or postponed until a solution could be found. Next day was Sunday, and a day of resting and feasting was observed as far as possible. Every Sunday Father Paul also celebrated mass for all who wanted to participate, and more and more people came for mass. Father Paul liberally spent holy communion to those wanting it, only asking that people believed that Christ was actually present in bread and wine and not being knowingly at odds with anyone, God or human alike, this was unlikely after the Saturday meeting; and father Paul himself was always available for a talk or for confession. 
   But on that Saturday evening's meeting father Paul brought himself up as a subject. "I've been thinking," he said, "what with the mice and all that other gene-pool stuff. I feel I'm somehow cheating out by not marrying and begetting children of my own." He looked round on all present. "I mean, I'm not related to anybody here, as far as I know at least, and I wonder whether I am not just being selfish for not adding my genes to the pool?"
  "Do you want to marry, Father?" Mary asked.
  "No way," father Paul answered quickly. "I neither feel alone, nor lonely. And the thought of living with a woman, getting to know her in the biblical sense and most of all: Never being able to celebrate the mysteries of Mass again, makes me go all cold inside and my stomach heavy as lead. It's not that; it is pure 'should I be allowed to deprive the gene pool of my genes' that is the question. I'm not in the least unsure of my calling."
  "And neither are we, really." Tom said. "Your being our priest, and by 'our' I mean a priest for all of us, has meant a great deal for the sanity of this settlement. 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchisedek' Those words suit you perfectly."
  Allan rose, shyly for once. "Ever since the Wave, you have been The Priest. Our priest. Genes, gene pools and future generations' survivability is not all there is to life. Mental stability, rituals and the things that transcendent reality matter as well. I'm not a man of big words but I'll try to explain ... When someone dies, I kneel  here, in this place. ... I think I speak for many of us now ... I kneel here and I look at my hands, at Mary's hands, at the hands of all us old geezers. Big, gnarled hands, scarred, rough, made for work, made for doing. But in front of death there is no doing only silence. I want to go somewhere else, lugging stones, chopping down trees, digging ... everywhere else but here, kneeling, waiting, silent ... I feel my impotence in the presence of death. But then you are here as well, with that tiny altar of yours, with your worn paraments, and with my best Zinfandel." Allan smiled despite his seriousity. "With rituals, prayers, words as old as time itself. And then I feel, despite my despair and impotence, that I am where I need to be. Not that I feel at ease. I'd still run, given the option. But somehow some way ... there's a meaning behind all we are and do."
  "I think this was your answer." Tom said. "We are all your children. But if yo wish, we'll hold an election?" Father Paul nodded, unable to speak. "You know the drill. All go to the lectern one by one," Tom continued, "on a slip of paper you write 'Marry' or 'Priest' or a doodle if you abstain. Robert, please put up the bowl.
  Robert placed a big, lidded bowl next to the lectern and took off the lid. One by one all adult members of the community went to the lectern, took a slip of paper, wrote a word, folded it and dropped it into the bowl. Tom pointed at Astrid: "Astrid, please shake the bowl." Bothered by her arm, that never became as good as new after the accident which spared the life of her and her husband Bengt when the Wave passed, she placed the lid back over the bowl and shook it. Then she placed it on the lectern and sat down. Tom looked in his list: Mona, you're counting today. Mona went up, took off the lid and picked the slips of paper up one by one, Reading aloud, she sorted them in neat stacks in front of her:" "Priest." Mona read aloud 15 times in a row, then two Abstains then more Priests, one Marry, three more abstains, and then Priest ... Priest ... Priest ... until the bowl was empty. "I think there's no reason to count the votes," Mona said. "Father Paul, you are our priest, now and forever!"
"And now, Tom said, "As the chairman of today's meeting I declare the meeting for ended. Communal cake will be served shortly."