If I Had a Little More Time, I Would…

1. Watch basketball all day today.

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2. Write an open letter to President Obama urging him to think about this:

Over the course of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, many of our ancestors fled European lands where endless wars over national identity had made life utterly miserable.

Endless wars over national identity in the Middle-East have made life miserable for hundreds of thousands of people right now. Why don’t we urge them to come to America, and welcome all of them that want to come?

We could use our American ingenuity and enormous navy to help get them here. The Catholic Church in the United States stands ready to help re-settle them. [Archbishop Kurtz, president of the Bishops’ Conference, committed us last fall.]

Maybe you’re thinking, Mr. President, that this plan sounds politically challenging.  But think of this:  The wisest economists acknowledge that the main cause of the protracted malaise of the US economy during this decade is actually pretty obvious:  We have killed a huge segment of our wage-earning, tax-paying, and home-buying population in the womb.  Can we really regard it as a co-incidence that the real estate market hit a brick wall right at the time when the Roe v. Wade babies should have been buying their first homes?

The truth is that the United States actually has a desperate need for a lot more people.  The Syrians have beautiful ancient traditions, and we would be blessed to have them here.  Let’s send our big boats over to Turkey to pick up all of them that want to come!

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3. Make a video version of the following Platonic dialogue, in honor of George Orwell…

Fr. Cleophon:   The other day a poor soul came to the confessional.  He was beside himself.  He had made multiple appointments for sterilization surgery, and then canceled them.  Finally, he showed up.  As he lay on the table, right before the procedure, he was overcome with the sense that it was all wrong.  But he didn’t have the courage just to get up and walk out.

Fr. Thrasymachus:  OMG.

Fr. Cleophon:  He did it because his priest told him that it was okay.  His wife has had complications during pregnancy.

Fr. Thrasymachus:  But doesn’t that priest know that direct sterilization is inherently immoral?  It can never be justified, because it involves self-mutilation for no purpose other than to render sexual intercourse totally null and void.  Does that priest want his people to turn their marital lives into a farce of mutual masturbation?

Fr. Cleophon:  Apparently this priest neglected to check the Vatican website or the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Fr. Thrasymachus:  Do the doctors of today simply assume that we human beings really act like glorified lab rats, with no hope whatsoever of leading chaste lives and making heroic sacrifices for the sake of true love?

Fr. Cleophon:  I guess they do think that.

Fr. Thrasymachus:  Brother, how do you think I should channel the intense anger this causes in me?  Makes me want to write novels like 1984 and move onto a quiet sheep farm, away from all internet access!

Fr. Cleophon:  I don’t know, man.  But how about focusing on Jesus Christ, poor, chaste, and gentle, totally obedient to the Father?  Maybe we could do our little part to help people see the joy of living a humble, ascetical life, dedicated to getting to heaven?