Marketing the New and Improved Religion

This just in!  The marketing news we have all been waiting for.  The Vatican is set to dump limbo!  Of course the Pope didn't just decide this on his own.  The Vatican's International Theological Commission spent several years on this thorny issue and God only knows how they were able to come to this conclusion or what evidence they used to substantiate their position.  What is certain, according the Vatican, is that unbaptiszed babies who die do not go to limbo anymore.  They go straight to Heaven.

Of course the issue of limbo is a concern for the Vatican because infant mortality rates are very high in the Catholicism growth regions of the world. Not only is the Church up against some competing faiths in these areas but worse yet, new converts are having to come to grips with a belief system that worships a harsh and vindictive Supreme Being, one who would banish unbaptized babies who die to the no place of limbo.  What kind of God is that?

The cultivation of these new Christian consumers, many of them in Africa, requires that seemingly radical measures like eliminating limbo be implemented quickly lest they begin to question the institution of expedient explotation delivered by the missionaries of capitalism.  For as the good book says "they all cometh seeking money and gold, yet findth thy oil."

The Niger Delta in Nigeria is one example of what the Vatican is distressed about. Oil corporations, those bulldozers of capitalism, are plundering the people and the environment to such an extent that women have commendered oil terminals and gunmen attack vessels supporting the oil rigs. The flock of cardinals and bishops have to know that people so desperate that they risk their unbaptized lives to stop the pillage of their ancestral lands will also be questioning the attributes of the merciful Heavenly Father that the Vatican is selling.  If the God marketed by the Vatican can be cruel enough to send dead unbaptized babies into the eternal void, what else will he do?  Will he also chuck into hell the souls of those brave enough to stand-up to the corporations and stop the harsh and cruel business practices that defile the earth and contaminate the commons?

The marketing coup from limbo elimination may actually prove to be short-lived and could be the beginnings of the Vatican's undoing.  Without the "limbo buffer" there are no more gray areas, just the black and white of heaven and hell.  This is good news for many of the world's poor since their lives are already hell on earth.   With the limbo ruling they are now guarenteed full passage to heaven without any baptismal rituals or endless church donations needing to be suffered by them.

Praise the Lord!   

 

Comments

[C Martin]

Good idea