February XIV, MCMLXXXV

His Holiness Pope John Paul II or current occupant
The Vatican
Vatican City, Italy CMXXII

Your Holiness:

I have recently been hearing of the many difficulties that beset your church and respectfully suggest I may be able to assist you in solving some, if not all, of these problems.

I believe it would be to your advantage to examine a computer software program I have developed. This program, by coincidence, is called MICROİPOPE (Papal Optimal Penance Evaluator) and could easily become the biggest thing to hit the church structure since Friday meat-eating was allowed. Simply described, this program would allow a small desktop computer to be installed in each confessional throughout the world. The program is described as user-friendly, which means it can be used by anyone without assistance. In its present form any person who desires to confess his or her sins can approach an unmanned confessional booth and, using a keyboard, enter the needed information into a small computer. After giving basic information such as date, time since last confession and age, the person is presented with a list of sins, which appear on the screen. All that is needed is a selection of the sin and an indication of the number of times committed; the computer does most of the rest.

I think Your Holiness can see the advantage of this method.

Additionally, suggestions could be given for sins that might have been forgotten or, in some case, opportunity would be provided for people to confess to activities they didn't even know were sins. Once the complete list has been reviewed all that is needed is a simple selection of "Y" for yes or "N" for no and press "ENTER" when the screen asks, "Do you promise never to commit these sins again?" From then on the computer takes over and evaluates the sins and assigns a penance. With the speed of modern computers this would take less than a second, except for certain mafia figures and/or politicians. The penitent would be assigned a certain number of Hail Marys or Our Fathers, depending on which sins had been committed and how frequently.

Of course, the computer has been programmed to assign different values to different sins. For example, murders would be worth VM (5000) points each, while masturbation would only count for about half a point. Combinations are weighted, because, as you well know, certain simultaneous sinnings are more serious than separate single acts. One that comes to mind is skipping Mass while committing adultery. It would also seem that taking the name of The Lord in vain while robbing a liquor store on the Sabbath would score high. On the other hand, practicing birth control while committing adultery probably deserves some leniency.

One of the unique things about our particular program is the built-in ability to analyze and correlate surrounding factors. If there were to be a lot of coveting and it was mixed with adultery, the computer could analyze addresses to determine if the sinners were neighbors and if one happened to be a neighbor's wife more points would need to be assigned. At this time, MICROİPOPE is the only program on the market that has this XXth century capability. After the penance appears on the screen, one more button is pressed and a printer types out the complete prayers needed for penance at LXXX (80) characters per second. It follows with The Act of Contrition in the traditional style.

Your Holiness, I am sure a man of your wisdom needs no further explanation to see the wondrous benefits that would accompany widespread installation of this new concept of confession.
  1. Priests, who are currently tied up most of Saturday, would be free to go to schools and video arcades where sin is really rampant today.
  2. More young men would be attracted to the priesthood when this dull task no longer needs to be performed.
  3. There is an excellent chance you would need fewer priests anyway. At least that has been the experience of many other industries when they converted (if I may use that expression). With fewer priests the savings in wine alone would no doubt pay for the installation of the system.
  4. This program is completely flexible and can be modified should any changes occur in church law.
  5. It can be in any language with variations for different national habits which affect sinning. I would welcome any assistance your multilingual skills you could provide in translating this program to other languages. Of course, appropriate credit would be given and perhaps a modest royalty could be arranged.
In general, these programs fit into small computers; the largest one, which is used by the Amish, uses XXXII kilobytes (32K) of computer memory due to the tremendous number of sins they must deal with. We are currently working on a similar program for Unitarians that could fit into IV kilobytes (4K) of memory. So you can see, it can be modified to fit all situations.

The advantage of accurately printing out the prayers is obvious, particularly in these times when so many youths are unaware of the proper use of language. I know what it is to work for a boss who is constantly being irritated and I sympathize with you, knowing that your boss surely must be fed up with hearing about "Art Fodder" and "Hugh Art N. Heaven". This program will eliminate all of that and I'm sure you would find your work a lot more pleasant.

I must admit to one possible weakness in the current program. At this time, there is no provision for identifying sins that have not yet been defined or sins that have never been committed before. However, don't you really think we have enough sins now to keep everyone busy?

I hope Your Holiness will give serious consideration to the implementation of such a program and know that I stand ready to meet with you at any time to discuss it further.

Hoping to hear from you soon.

Your obedient servant,

Name Withheld, President
MICROİPOPE Enterprises, Inc.

P.S. By the way, I think you are doing a good job, considering you weren't even born in this country.