Filed under: Books and Movies, Culture and Catholicism, Green Catholics | Tags: Catholic, Catholic science fiction, Catholic values, cooperatives, feminism, fiction, science fiction, space colonies, space program
You read parts One through Four below. Here’s Five. The Church will be out there in the future. Get used to it.
Everybody in the room had the same debit card since the pre-flight check. Nobody knew exactly how it would work, but everybody was now on the government payroll, at least temporarily. But not exactly. They had done something new there. Or really old, Al wasn’t sure which. They had organized the colony as an old-fashioned cooperative, and eventually the profits would be distributed among them all, as full owners. And earth’s investment, administered by all the world’s governments, paid back. It wasn’t socialist, it wasn’t capitalist. And it was a big risk. But cooperatives had been done, and overlooked, from early times right up to the twenty first century. And there it was, the cooperative concept, when they needed some new economic vehicle. So the workers wrote their mission statement and their rules of operation (“One man one vote”), bought out NASA with government money, and began to transform the whole debate, from the bottom up.
Filed under: Books and Movies, Culture and Catholicism, Green Catholics | Tags: Catholic, Catholic church, Catholic fiction, Catholic science fiction, claustrophobia, future of the Catholic church, priesthood, science fiction, space colonies, space program
His heart was thudding in his chest. Something was coming for him! Don’t think about that, hold on to the woman’s voice. Concentrate! ”How many times?” He could only get so many words on the exhale. Three was about right. The panic would build toward the end. Would there be air when he needed to inhale?
He got the next sip.
“Once. This week.”
Think about something good, something with air. Air! Cool, dry, silky over the lips, oh God, help me! I can’t! Can’t get air!
“Did it hurt?” Sip. “Anyone?” Sip.
The woman paused and thought. “I suppose it made someone mad. ”
No, no, don’t go there. Not therapy. Sin. “Anything else?” Sip. Poison air, like melted wax. Nauseous, gonna hurl. Help.
“And, the seventh Commandment.”
“Yes?” He was drowning. Christ drowned. Couldn’t get air. Way they stretched His arms. There was no air, just her perfume, hair spray, awful. Panic was right there where he could touch it. Something was coming. All he had to do was scream, and then: no air. What happened next? It couldn’t be worse than this. Help.
“The one against stealing, Father.” She sounded exasperated, to have to tell him. It hurt his pride!
