Have you given any thought to the economics of mercy?

The approach of Divine Mercy Sunday troubles me. What good is mercy if it is hardly ever available. The quality of mercy is certainly strained by the stinginess by which it is often granted.

As Catholics, we naturally wish for as much mercy as possible to be doled out to all who would seek it. In theory. In practice, we wish to dole as much mercy as can be doled out between the hours of 4:00 and 4:45 pm on Saturdays or by appointment.

Defenders of this woeful practice argue that even during the 45 minutes a week confession is available, not that many people take advantage of it, so why increase the hours?

People who think like this completely miss the boat.

Let’s think of the mercy of confession as economic activity. If I had a store that was only open for 45 minutes on Saturday afternoon, I don’t care how great the product I am selling might be, I am going out of business–fast.

What we need is nice big dose of supply side economics for the mercy business.

Supply side theory postulates that …

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