BREAKING NEWS- Google & The Vatican

by Lawren ce Of Arabia
(Paris, France)

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 $12.8bn 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 2012.

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 executive chairman 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 $12.8bn 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, “But...erm.. I thought you said that I'd look cute in one?”.

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”.