040 - MICROSOFT Bids to Acquire Catholic Church By Hank Vorjes VATICAN CITY (AP)
-- In a joint press conference in St. Peter's Square this morning, MICROSOFT
Corp. and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire
the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares
of MICROSOFT common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first
time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion. With the acquisition,
Pope John Paul II will become the senior vice-president of the combined company's
new Religious Software Division, while MICROSOFT senior vice-presidents Michael
Maples and Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said
MICROSOFT Chairman Bill Gates. "We expect a
lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to ten years," said
Gates. "The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the Catholic Church will allow
us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people." Through the MICROSOFT
Network, the company's on-line service, "we will make the sacraments available
on-line for the first time" and revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation
practice of selling indulgences, said Gates. "You can get Communion, confess
your sins, receive absolution -- even reduce your time in Purgatory -- all
without leaving your home." A new software
application, MICROSOFT Church, will include a macro language which you can
program to download heavenly graces automatically while you are away from
your computer. An estimated
17,000 people attended the announcement in St Peter's Square, watching on
a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello -- in character as Father Guido Sarducci
-- hosted the event, which was broadcast by satellite to 700 sites worldwide. Pope John Paul
II said little during the announcement. When Novello chided Gates, "Now I
guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats," the crowd roared, but the
pontiff's smile seemed strained. The deal grants
MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and the Vatican's prized
art collection, which includes works by such masters as Michelangelo and Da
Vinci. But critics say MICROSOFT will face stiff challenges if it attempts
to limit competitors' access to these key intellectual properties. "The Jewish people
invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures," said Rabbi David Gottschalk
of Philadelphia. "You take the parting of the Red Sea -- we had that thousands
of years before the Catholics came on the scene." But others argue
that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a common Abrahamic heritage.
"The Catholic Church has just been more successful in marketing it to a larger
audience," notes Notre Dame theologian Father Kenneth Madigan. Over the last
2,000 years, the Catholic Church's market share has increased dramatically,
while Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted
by Christianity, lags behind. Historically,
the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor, leading crusades
to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and entering into exclusive
licensing arrangements in various kingdoms whereby all subjects were instilled
with Catholicism, whether or not they planned to use it. Today Christianity
is available from several denominations, but the Catholic version is still
the most widely used. The Church's mission is to reach "the four corners
of the earth," echoing MICROSOFT's vision of "a computer on every desktop
and in every home". Gates described
MICROSOFT's long-term strategy to develop a scalable religious architecture
that will support all religions through emulation. A single core religion
will be offered with a choice of interfaces according to the religion desired
-- "One religion, a couple of different implementations," said Gates. The MICROSOFT
move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to Herb Peters,
a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist Conference, as other churches scramble
to strengthen their position in the increasingly competitive religious market.
MICROSOFT Bids to Acquire
Catholic Church