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Originally Posted by issybird
Dick didn't have to be Catholic to invoke this. I suspect it's like the unnecessary DNA reference, just authorial overkill.
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I wonder what the associations were for DNA in 1968. As you pointed out, DNA was a relatively recent discovery and perhaps the associations of the time were such that using it as an explain-all was not as inappropriate as it seems now. Terry Pratchett makes jokes in his books about the answer (to just about anything technical) being "quantum", and lots of Sci-Fi tries to hide their magic wands behind quantum physics, black holes, dark matter, wormholes and so on. Might DNA have been seen (by the non-scientific public) in that light in 1968?
(My problem is not the use of DNA as the magic wand, it's that the nature of the magic wand seems to be in conflict with how the past is explored. It didn't worry me while reading, but it's apparent on review. Not a big deal, just one of those things.)
As for the absolution bit, I didn't find it overkill either. Dick would have been feeling quite overwhelmed with all he had learned, and all he was seeing, so I think it may have seemed strange if he had not found some way to express those emotions. That he might recall some relevant lines of prayer learned as a child did not feel at all inappropriate to me.
(Just a case of one person's "authorial overkill" being another's "nice touch". 
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