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By Root 371 0

the Americans won’t. The Brits—if you’ll allow me a sweeping generalization that can be disproved at any British soccer riotare an intelligent people with a great sense of humor and a rabid appreciation of political satire. Unlike us, they have numerous media outlets (London alone has eleven daily papers, and their four national networks have more to offer on any given night than our two hundred plus channels combined). The British media offer a wide spectrum of editorial viewpoints. No one is left out of the political discourse in the United Kingdom.

Except the Catholics of Northern Ireland.

As with the Palestinian “situation,” I’m not going to spend time rehashing eight hundred years of history, so let me get right to the present conundrum. Catholics in Northern Ireland are second-class citizens whose rights are continually violated, who are kept on the lowest tier economically, and who live under the thumb of an occupational force of British soldiers. This has led to a lot of random killing in the past thirty-three years. Bill Clinton was able to bring the two sides together during his presidency, and helped work out a peace settlement that would have included Catholics in the power structure of Northern Ireland. Everyone was relieved and hopeful.

But that hope didn’t last long, as the Protestants soon insisted they wouldn’t share power until every IRA gun was turned in. Most saw this as an excuse to try and back out of the agreement, and new bloodshed ensued. Since then, prospects have grown bleak.

This nonsense has gone on long enough. I have a solution that will bring permanent peace to the area:

Convert the Protestants of Northern Ireland to Catholicism.

That’s right. No more bickering and battling over religion when everyone belongs to the same religion! Naturally, most of the Protestants won’t want to convert—but since when has that stopped the Catholic Church? From the Crusades of the Middle Ages to the Spanish conquistadors of Latin America, the Church has always known how to “convince” the natives to see the light.

Because Catholics already make up 43 percent of Northern Ireland, we need to convert only 8 percent of the Protestants to create a Catholic majority. That ought to be a cinch. Especially once the Protestants consider the following benefits of being a Roman Catholic:

One guy in charge—the Pope. There are several thousand Protestant sects. Some are run by committee, some by an elected chair, others simply run like a food co-op, with no one calling the shots. Going Catholic means having a leader for life, someone unafraid of making a decision, giving the faithful a fixed set of rules and boundaries that give one’s life order and clarity. And after the Pope dies, no messy elections—a couple hundred guys wearing red gather in a room, vote, and a puff of white smoke out of the chimney tells everyone the decision has been made. No campaign speeches, no pandering to the electorate, no recounts.

• More sex. Catholics, as we all know, have more babies, and so, you know, that means only one thingmore sex! Sorry, but in the Catholic Church you can’t get the babies without the sex. And who couldn’t use a little extra sex these days? I’m telling you, let those Protestant Orangemen know they’re going to be getting some, and watch how fast they end those silly parades.

• More days off. The Catholic Church has six official Holy Days. In countries where the majority of citizens practice Catholicism, these are fully paid days off from work and schooldays off for the kids. Can you name one Protestant Holy Day—not counting the day the Eddie Bauer Christmas catalog comes out? I didn’t think so.

• Free alcohol. You go to Mass every day, you get a free drink of wine. True, you must accept that you’re drinking the Blood of Christ, but hey, you can do that! How many times have you told people that the gin and tonic you are nursing is “just water”? Have a little faith!

• Catholic girls (see above).

• A guaranteed spot in heaven at the right hand of God himself! It’s all there in the Bible—Jesus made Peter the head