In a joint press conference this morning held at Google’s HQ in Mountain view, California, GOOGLE Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and the Vatican announced that the Internet search giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church for an undisclosed number of GOOGLE shares and a staggering $1.8bn in capital. The deal will give GOOGLE exclusive rights to the bible. The company plans to release an interactive version with Google ads on, as early as January 2009.
With the acquisition, Pope Benedict XVI will become the senior vice president of GOOGLE’s new Interactive Bible Division, while GOOGLE’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be spending time in the College of Cardinals, said GOOGLE’s chief executive Eric Schmidt.
“Over the last 2,000 years or so, the Catholic Church’s market share has increased dramatically, which has definitely not been over-looked” said Schmidt. “The combined resources of GOOGLE and the Catholic Church will allow us to provide Google ads to an untapped market which has been growing under the radar at a significant rate, for decades”.
“With the new Interactive Bible that is set to hit stores and churches worldwide, you will be able to get communion, confess your sins, receive absolution, and even reduce your time in purgatory all at the click of a button” said Schmidt.
Pope Benedict XVI didn’t say much during the conference but you could see by the smile on his face that the $1.8bn was going to be put to some good use. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs was also at the conference and said to Schmidt, “At least now you can wear one of those pointy hats you’ve been talking about for months” and the crowd laughed in hysterics as Schmidt replied, “Yeah, I’ve only wanted one for this long because your mom thought it would look hot on me when I’m taking her from behind”.
Schmidt said GOOGLES’s long-term strategy for this acquisition was to develop a scalable religious solution that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere. Schmidt also added, “There will also be an interactive bible for you to download as we hope to have a bible on everybody’s desktop by 2020”.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Nice article, you could’ve tried to make it a little more believable? I mean, how often does god actually talk to people these days? When/if he does, the person he’s talked to is usually deemed ‘crazy’ if nothing else.
July 7th, 2008 at 4:45 am
I talk to god all the time, I am not crazy.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
It’s not even slightly believable. I know it’s a joke, but the Catholic church is one of the largest land owners in the world (if not THE largest). $1.8B + shares is just a ridiculous assumption of its worth.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
When you talk to God you’re religious. When God talks back, you’re a quack.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Wow, they got a real bargain since the Catholic church is worth more like 180 Trillion dollars. First there’s all the prime, and often historic, real estate scattered all over the world, then it’s enormous income from masses and tithes of a billions Roman Catholics, plus innumerable art treasures, massive Intellectual property, schools, universities, shares, gold, etc… Which is interesting since Jesus has no significant possessions and taught that his kingdom was not of this world. Furthermore the apostle John said “love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the father is not in him”. So how is it that what claims to be Christ’s representative on earth is on of the wealthiest institutions on the face of the earth?
July 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Right. Time to shut up, or don’t you read the papers?
July 8th, 2008 at 3:44 am
Now will we be praying to the Internet?
July 8th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Catholic Church is rich only because we the Catholics are rich and because we maintain our God’s visible institution on Earth well.
If you want to interpret the Bible passage you quote properly, it would mean that anyone who loves possessions or fame or power or pride or … you get the point is not worthy of the Kingdom of God. Jesus said so many a time in more direct terms (no need to quote something out of context). So John’s recap is not at all surprising.
Does that mean that it is wrong to live and enjoy life, does it mean it’s wrong to have a nice church, to decorate it with beautiful art, produced by pious artists inspired by God (after all mind is one of the talents God has bestowed on us and will ask us how we used it)? Of course not, it is only if you have something against God that you will try to find something wrong with God’s one and only true church. But gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and you know why? Because Jesus said so….
July 8th, 2008 at 7:11 am
I would love to see Sergey Brin becoming the new Pope =)
July 10th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I like your comment John. I was born and raised catholic but I can’t ignore the fact that the catholic church has so much money and properties while there’s still world hunger!
I love beautiful things too and I think God wants us to live well and have a comfortable life but greed is really not cool specially coming from a church. I wish the catholic church would be more like Christ and less like wall street brokers. Christ rocks!
As far as the joke goes, it was funny but I don’t think Google will be doing anything like that anytime soon. They might buy Japan or Colombia though.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
that’s copyright infringement.
did you even get the popes permission to use his image?
you’re lucky the pope isn’t the type to sue you.
If Google bought the Church, then the church would be followed under the internet?
would that mean you can go to church online on Sundays instead?